Sacrifice
by po1s
Summary: It looks like a promising job for the crew, but there's kind of a hitch.... (complete)
1. Chapter 1

SACRIFICE

_When I got off the ship, I could not believe it. I will never forget the sight. We had landed in a field of lush grass that was an almost blindingly intense green. To my left, the grass sloped down and faded out to a __long beach__ of white sand that lined the planet's largest ocean. Gentle waves rolled up the beach, begging you to throw off your clothes and dive in. To my right, the grass gradually turned into forest and gentle hills rose up in the distance, promising hours of entertaining rambles. Everything was growing—it sounds crazy, but I could almost feel the fertility of the land through my boots._

_I had never seen anything terraform so well. All terraformed planets have their quirks, of course, some more lethal than others. But I had read the reports—this place had no toxic gases, no tectonic hot spots, no extreme weather swings. On the contrary, the planet was set apart by the mildness of its weather and the regularity of its gentle rainfall._

_Even when we first began our terraforming operations, I had wondered if it would be possible to reserve a planet on the Rim, to create a place where my family and friends could come in order to get back to Nature. The Core planets are magnificent, of course—I have homes on three of them—but no grand estate can replace the yearning to experience the outdoors, the _real_ outdoors, not a crowded park (and even the most exclusive are so crowded these days) that has been meticulously landscaped and is riddled with security sensors. _

_And then, to get off the ship and see exactly what I had in my mind's eye, right there in front of me—well, it took me about half a second to recover my breath and decide that I had found my dream. I turned to my cousin. "Reginald," I said. "Let's keep this one."_

_—from _Pfalzenhoffer: Jewel on the Rim _by Thurston Pfalzenhoffer. Published by Planetary Publications, an imprint of Blue Sun Press._

It was the logical thing to do. Smith wanted them to get along in a hurry because the cargo'd be liable to spoilage, but Inara had a three-day job. It was only two days to Glory of God from Pfalzenhoffer, so take two days there, a day to unload and load, and two days back—they'd be back in five days. And on a place like Pfalzenhoffer, where the cream of the Core went to get relaxed, a woman like Inara would have no trouble at all filling those extra days, and that lucratively.

So there shouldn't have been a huge fit and fuss about leaving her behind, but of course there was, and Mal was tetchy about it. He had made some mistakes, sure—he probably shouldn't have brought up her leaving Serenity for good again, seeing as she seemed to have dropped that notion on her own. It wouldn't have hurt nothing if he'd kept his mouth shut. No, it wouldn't have. 

But her mulishness about seeing this particular client had agitated him to no end. He had heard her talking to the fellow in her shuttle—she was laughing and yapping with this fellow like they were old friends. "I know you, Inara dear," Mal had hear the huang chong say. "You're always taking care of everyone else—why not let me take care of you for a couple of days." He had been a regular of hers back on Sihnon, so this was going to be like some kind of reunion. Yup, a reunion. They'd be reuniting his yin jing with her….

"Well, Sir," said Zoe, snapping Mal out of his reverie. "Looks like Rairty's moved up in the world."

"It's Smith now," said Mal, with a laugh. "You think he couldn't of done better than Smith? It's not much of an alias."

They were on the catwalk overlooking the cargo hold, where Mal had been standing since Inara's shuttle left. As Zoe walked on her way to the cockpit, Mal followed. 

"Can you imagine what would happen if the authorities found out who the respectaful Andrew Smith really is?" asked Mal.

"Don't even joke about that," said Zoe as she stepped onto the bridge. "The number of purplebellies that man killed, they'd chop him to bits if they knew he was living on Pfalzenhoffer."

"Knew who was living on Pfluffenutter?" asked Wash, as Zoe put her hand on his shoulder. He turned for the kiss, then looked back out the cockpit window. "Pretty ugly name for such a pretty place, ain't it?"

Mal looked out the window, too. There was no question, Pfalzenhoffer was indeed a marvel. Aside from the occasional mansion or stable—containing horses each of which no doubt cost more than Serenity herself—nothing broke the endless green of the forest. Roads had been prohibited to preserve the landscape, so travel was only by air or on horseback. Lucky for them, travel planetside tended to be unmonitored, all part of the back-to-Nature mentality. The tricky bit with Pfalzenhoffer was getting permission to come visit at all. If it hadn't been for Inara's client….

"Smith!" said Mal. "You were asking about this Smith fellow we're going to go meet. We haven't worked with him before, but Zoe and I, we know him."

"Or we knew of him," said Zoe. "From the war."

"He was an Independent, a big leader," Mal continued. "Went by the name of Rairty. He ran an outfit of commandoes, some of the most daring sorts about. A great trouble to the Alliance. Famed far and wide for their dash and dander."

"They had no fear!" said Zoe, and they both started to laugh.

"OK," said Wash. "Why is that funny?"

"They had no fear, sweetcakes," said Zoe, leaning forward and moving her hand down his chest, "because they never sober. Or at least that was the rumor."

"Party Rairty!" exclaimed Mal. "I never did learn his first name. But he was a legend, for many reasons, not all of them the sort of thing his mother would be proud of. He was the real thing, though, his group did some serious damage. Not the kind the Alliance is liable to forgive."

"They had a motto, something like, 'We may be hammered, but we'll hammer you'," said Zoe. "Or maybe it was, 'We may be slammed, but we'll slam you.' No one ever knew, exactly, and that includes Rairty's men. We came across a few once and tried to ask them…."

"But they had been busy living up to their creed, whatever it was, and they weren't sober enough to tell us!" said Mal. "And now Rairty's here, living on Pfalzenhoffer of all places, all respectaful and proper…."

"Except for that smuggling thing he does," finished Wash as they flew over a clearing. "There he is!"

***

Rairty stood with his men before his shuttle, watching the Reynolds' ship land in the isolated clearing. To call him respectaful was a bit of an exaggeration: He was wealthier now, to be sure, and he had gone to great lengths to conceal his past, taking on the identity of a dead man whose name, irritatingly, actually was Smith. It had helped that Rarity had never been a public sort of leader with his face plastered everywhere—even among the Independents, most had never seen him and only knew him by nickname. That's what made units like his effective—big word of mouth, but no one knows who you are. Just like the Reavers.

Nowadays, he owned a club on the beach, but his real business on Pfalzenhoffer was to supply the wealthy with illegal recreational drugs. Not everybody who came to the "Jewel of the Rim" wanted to spend their free time walking in the dirt, listening to birds chirp, and slapping around in some stupid canoe. Not everybody by a long shot. 

The whole simple-life crapola that sold the uberrich on Pfalzenhoffer worked to Rairty's advantage nonetheless: A lot of people sent their wayward lads and lassies there on the theory that getting them away from the bad crowd would straighten them out. Of course, the bad crowd was everywhere you chose to look, provided you chose to look. And rich kids never, ever had their luggage searched.

Rairty knew enough about Sergeant-turned-Captain Reynolds to know that he would never agree to run drops—not that the piece of crap landing in front of him would be good for that kind of job anyway. No, Reynolds' ship was strictly a Rim-runner. Which was fine—life on Pfalzenhoffer wasn't all about blowing your mind. Rairty was looking to branch out, and with any luck, this crew would be the ticket.

"Malcolm Reynolds?" he said.

"None other," Reynolds replied. "You must be Andrew Smith." 

Of course Rairty already knew what his contact looked like—and it wasn't like Reynolds was living under someone else's name now, or had grown a beard and dyed it gray, or wore glasses made with plain-glass lenses, or had deliberately gained an extra 50 pounds. Rairty looked at Reynolds, then looked at his own pot belly and sighed. People had always said that his kind of life would age a man. And in a funny way, they were right.

Rairty might enjoy himself, but he did his gorram homework. That was one reason he'd survived the war, as well as its aftermath. Another was his ability to pick the right man for the job, to figure out who would best play what role—and who could be culled, if need be. Looking at Reynolds and his second—a beautiful woman, but obviously ex-military—both standing ramrod straight, giving his men the hairy eyeball despite their expensive clothing, Rairty knew he'd made the right choice. 

"Load the ship!" Rairty snapped to his men. "Reynolds, let's talk."

The two of them stood alongside Rairty's ship as he ran through his speech. It was a delicate job. It was going to take care, diplomacy, smarts. The cargo was fragile and had to be handled properly, both ways. But the take was worth it—and it could become a lucrative, semi-regular gig, for the right ship.

Then came the showstopper. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the globe. He had taken his time choosing it from what was left in cold storage, and he could see the reaction on Reynolds' face.

"An orange!" said Reynolds.

Perfect. "No, take a close look at it," said Rairty, handing it to him.

"It's—it's _like _an orange," said Reynolds, a slight edge of amazement creeping into his voice. "But it's not."

Good, he was stumped. Rairty explained what a tangelo was, and what a variety of large, fine citrus fruits Reynolds was going to be picking up. He took the tangelo back—he would give it to Reynolds later, but he wanted him to think he might not get to keep it.

"But this is the best part," said Rairty. He pulled the blue cloth out of his other pocket, and rubbed the tangelo with it. Then he showed the cloth to Reynolds. Still blue.

Of course Reynolds didn't get it—he never lived in the Core, much less in a place like Pfalzenhoffer. The showman in Rairty was disappointed, but the businessman soldiered on, explaining how fruit sold on Pfalzenhoffer had to be grown hydroponically—it quadrupled the cost, but people here were too gorram fancy to each fruit irrigated by graywater and fertilized by sewage and manure, the way most fruit on the Rim was grown. This fruit was grown that way too, but unlike most people the farmers on Glory of God were careful and disciplined about sterilization. A contamination wipe wouldn't show anything that would set off the law. With the right forged documents and unblemished produce, Rairty could supply the estates and restaurants of Pfalzenhoffer with "hydroponic" fruit at hydroponic prices.

Reynolds seemed to understand. He was supposed to be reasonably bright, if a bit too pious and earnest. He was smart enough to ask about the documentation, pointing out that he'd need some to have an explanation for his cargo if he got stopped on the way back to Pfalzenhoffer. But as he was handing the forgeries over, Rairty noticed one of Reynolds' men. A big fellow with a beard, he didn't stand like a military man—he held himself like a thug, like someone who would enjoy a good brawl because he'd win it. Rairty noticed that he was wearing a T-shirt with a silhouette of a naked woman on it: bad. Then, the big fellow put his hand to his nose and lurched forward, blowing out a white wad of snot on to the grass before wiping his hand on his pants. Bad, bad, bad.

"Do you know why I picked you?" Rairty asked Reynolds.

"We share a certain background," said Reynolds, quietly.

"Well for me, that's actually a risk," Rairty replied, no less quietly. "But you did have a certain reputation back then, sort of the opposite of mine, and I haven't forgotten it. The moon is named Glory of God, and that's not just by accident. Hang on a second."

He walked over to Wolf, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him over to Reynolds. Wolf looked apprehensive, like thought he might be in for some ball-busting. He thought right.

"This is Wolf," said Rairty. "Wolf, this is Reynolds. Wolf's a good man, he landed on Glory of God to make a repair and saw an opportunity." 

The expression on Wolf's face changed to flat-out resentment, but Rairty had a point to make to Reynolds and could patch things up with Wolf later. He continued. 

"Wolf realized how disciplined these people are, how important it is to them—being so religious and all—to grow their food clean, so that their bodies are pure and do not offend the Lord. And Wolf realized that these people are off the beaten track and need to trade, need to grow something that people on other planets would want to buy, so that they can get the equipment and supplies they need that they can't make themselves. So, Wolf, tell Mr. Reynolds here what you suggested."

"That place is a desert," said Wolf. "It'd grow easy and people would buy it—that stuff is really hot right now."

"Yes, yes," said Rairty. "All valid points. But you haven't told Mr. Reynolds exactly what crop you suggested the nice God-fearing people grow, have you?"

Wolf looked down, irritated. "Peyote," he said.

Of course that was a bust too—there was no way that Reynolds would know what peyote was, it wasn't like he ran with the kind of crowd that could afford the latest in retro non-synthetics. So Rairty had to explain things again, and again Reynolds seemed to get the point pretty quickly and promised to at least make sure no one wore clothes with pictures of naked people on them while planetside.

Surprisingly, Wolf piped up. "They're real isolated, you know—the closest planet to them is this one, and the whole point of Pfalzenhoffer is that it's far from everything. So a lot of the outsiders they deal with are either smugglers or, you know, would-be raider types, so like with us, they were real suspicious to begin with. But they'll warm to you if you behave yourself. Just give them a little time." 

_Very_ professional of him, Rairty thought. Wolf deserved a nice, long bender.

The loading was finished, and Rairty gave the tangelo and the instructions to Reynolds. Reynolds showed the fruit to the sexy one—maybe he wasn't _that_ righteous—but wouldn't let the big one touch it, promising to give him a slice when they got on the ship. The cargo doors closed, and Reynolds' ship rose up and flew off into the setting sun for Glory of God.

It was a little hard to communicate with this Reynolds fellow, Rairty mused, but if things worked out, the effort would be worth it. So what if Reynolds didn't fit in with Rairty's crew? He knew Reynolds would work on Glory of God: He'd have a lot in common with those people. He was a religious nut, too. 

_____________

TRANSLATIONS:

Note: I figured I should provide these both because I use some non-traditional Firefly terms and because some family members who aren't obsessively into Firefly are going to be reading this. Since you could fit my knowledge of Chinese, Persian, Latin and Arabic into a thimble and still have room for your thumb, most of these come from on-line dictionaries or from Ying's delightful Firefly Pinyinary.

huang chong: Chinese, "locust"

yin jing: Chinese, "penis"


	2. Chapter 2

Glory of God was never meant to support settlers. The small plant spun slowly on its upright axis, so that even with an Earth-That-Was-type atmosphere the daily temperatures varied more than 80 degrees.

The planet had been terraformed for one reason only—mining it was cheaper that way. Until the settlers dubbed it Glory of God, the planet had no name and was wholly owned by Huang Jin Mining, a subsidiary of Blue Sun Extractions, which ran an operation to extract azurinium, a rare mineral that for years was a critical to the operation of space-based weaponry.

The rich azurinium deposits on the planet that became Glory of God were located deep underground, in very hard rock. The rock was also riddled with pockets of water and, in what struck some its miners as a particularly whimsical variation, pockets of explosive gas. The planet's mines soon chalked up accident and death rates far higher than the industry average. The easier-to-reach deposits were mined out first, and as the years passed, mining azurinium on the unnamed planet became even more hazardous. 

The death-knell for the planet's azurinium mines, however, was not danger, but progress: A new weapons technology was developed that used cheaper, more readily-available materials, and azurinium once again was only of interest to geologists. 

About 10 months before Huang Jin shut down azurinium operations and turned over ownership of the planet to the Allied Homestead Office, a group of 43 miners landed on the planet. They had two things in common. They were all indentured, and they all had just less than a year left on their contracts. 

The miners had made the trip through space together and were bunked in a single dorm. It took them about seven work shifts to realize what was going on. A manager at Huang Jin had realized that such indentured were the most expendable: If they died, the company lost less than a year of labor, and it would not have to pay the bonus traditionally given a worker who finished out his contract. As a result, these miners were being given the most hazardous work in a mining operation that was none too safe to begin with.

Things did not look good for those who the people of Glory of God would eventually refer to as The 43. They could not leave the mine or refuse to work, because that would be in violation of their indentures, and they would wind up in prison or enslaved. But given the average rate of death or serious injury in that particular mine, between six to eight of the men could expect to lose life or limb before their indentures were up—and that wasn't taking into account that all the really dangerous tasks were reserved for The 43 to perform.

Six of the men were Roman Catholic, two were Orthodox, and 11 were Protestants. Another 13 were Sunni, five were Shi'ite, and five were New Universal Islamists. One was agnostic. By the end of the first month every one of The 43 was praying communally five times a day—participating by com if they had to—and was wearing a small medallion featuring St. Barbara, a patron saint of miners, which had been provided by one of the Roman Catholic miner's home parishes. 

The 43 did not have much time for theological debates or doctrinal niceties—indeed, when the agnostic converted in the second month, no one was ever really sure which religion he had converted to. The only major doctrinal victory occurred in the fourth month, when one of the Protestants, raised in the Church of Fluviatulis Piscator, lost his left hand in an explosion that happened a few hours after he ate some canned ham that had been sent to him by an aunt. But while they didn't have much time or energy for argument, The 43 had plenty of both for ritual: religious ceremonies, safety checks, and every possible combination of the two.

The Miracles of The 43 refers to two distinct events. The first was that all 43 survived—there were some broken bones and that lost hand, but considering the odds against them, divine favor seemed a not-unreasonable conclusion. The second miracle had its seed in the actions of the Fluviatulis Piscator man: Offered the option of leaving the planet after his accident, he stayed. The others, as they fulfilled their indentures and received their bonuses, stayed as well, working for wages until the mine closed for good. When the mine shut down, three of the men still owed time on their contracts; the other men pooled their money and bought those contracts out.

They had found their home.

***

Inara lay out her dresses on the bed of her shuttle. There was a black-and-gold one, but it had a high neck, not the thin straps and flowing sleeves of the dress in the still. Plus, unlike that dress, it left her midriff bare. Another was similar in style to the one in the still, but it had a bead trim, which that dress didn't have, and despite a gold waist, it was scarlet. She looked at the still of her and Jin You on her monitor, then back at her dresses. If only she still had that dress, a lovely black stain with a gold lace overlay. But that was two years ago, and good dresses never lasted. So which would matter more to Jin, the color or the cut?

Argh, she was stressing over something that should have been fun. It was all Mal's fault, the man could put the Bodhisattva of Compassion in a foul mood, and even a night's sleep had not erased the irritation. "This _is _your kind of planet, after all. Maybe you'll find a place here, if you're still looking to leave Serenity." What a hun dan. 

She had stayed for River. _River._ You don't discover find out that someone has been made into a psychic and then traipse off to New Melbourne as though nothing had changed. It was just irresponsible and stupid of Mal to suggest that she leave, especially now. Some members of that crew needed all the adult supervision available.

It was a good thing that she stayed, and it was just so typically self-centered of Mal to forget all about it because he was unhappy about her work. Jayne had been ridiculous after they had gotten rid of that horrid bounty hunter. He constantly wore that orange hat because he thought it might somehow insulate his thoughts from River's mind.

But the real problems began once his fear had subsided. River suddenly got much worse and became almost constantly agitated. She kept accusing people of "poking at me, poking at my eyes" and shouting, "I'm not white! I'm not a rat!" 

Inara was the first to notice that these outbursts happened more often when Jayne was around. It turned out that he had embarked on a little personal project to test River's powers. He would wear different hats or no hat at all, or hide behind things. Then he would think of really disturbing things to see if she reacted. He was also trying to "beam" thoughts to her, to see if he could influence what kind of food she ate, or if he could make her give him her food. 

Book said that it didn't seem to be the content of Jayne's thoughts that were disturbing River (although Inara couldn't help but imagine the content of Jayne's thoughts would be pretty traumatic in and of themselves). Instead, it was the mere fact that someone was experimenting on her—like the infirmary, it was a reminder of past torture.

Things had been calmer lately, but who knew what would happen? Mal had told Jayne to "police your thoughts" when it came to River, and he did it with such intensity that he made Inara all the more suspicious that Jayne had been trying to get the poor girl to give up more than her food. How long before that oaf decided upon some other use for her? Simon was trying different medicines, but River was still cycling in and out of lucidity unpredictably. She needed care. She needed people who would care for her. And even Mal, hun dan that he was, couldn't make Inara stop doing that.

An idea occurred to her that made her forget all about her wardrobe crisis: Maybe she _could_ leave Serenity. If she found the right sort of place, she could leave and take River and Simon with her. It would be tricky, but people did hide their identities—after all, that Smith man was someone Mal knew from the war. River wouldn't like leaving Serenity, but some other place might be better for her. Someplace away from people like Jayne; someplace where she could get better care.

Speaking of people who needed care…Inara looked again at the dresses and decided on the scarlet one. It wasn't black, but it wasn't that bright. And most people notice the cut of clothing first, even if they think they notice the color. Her hair and makeup at least would be easy replicate. She looked at the still again. It was from a party back on Sihnon, back before things got complicated. Back with Jin You—there was delightful client, a man who made you glad to be a companion. She put her hair up in the front, leaving the back loose. Dark eyeliner, a warm, neutral gloss on the lips. Small earrings, and a large choker.

Her toilette complete, Inara flew her shuttle out of the docks that housed Pfalzenhoffer's temporary workers, over the planet's rolling hills, and to the You estate. In keeping with the gestalt of the place, estates on Pfalzenhoffer usually were patterned on some rural or rustic architecture. The You estate was no exception—it rose four stories high and looked like a log cabin built for a race of giants. Even the shuttle landing pad was "log"—although as Inara landed her shuttle, she decided that it must be synthetic wood, or at least heavily treated, since most ships burned hot enough to scorch the real thing.

Jin was never hard or demanding—indeed, people used to joke that he was so charming, he had probably had had some companion training. But in his own way, he was quite particular, enough so that Inara had pulled up that old picture as a reference. On Sihnon, Jin had never come to the temple. Instead, he had always booked Inara for multiple days, having him come to his house there. Unlike most clients, he always wanted Inara to be involved in his life, not to be the distraction from it.

She stepped off the log landing pad, down a short flight of wooden stairs, to a walkway made of stripes of polished wood of different colors, which led to the front door. It took her a moment to find the bell—a small brass pinecone, very clever. A moment after she rang it the door was opened, not by a servant, but by a young woman it took Inara a second to recognize as Jin's daughter.

"Lily!" she exclaimed, genuinely happy to see the girl. Jin was a widower—his wife had passed on several years ago, although Inara knew very little about the circumstances since he never spoke of his wife or displayed pictures of her. Inara remembered Lily as an older teen with beautiful manners that she was nonetheless forever trying to improve—she often acted as hostess when her father entertained, and she was perhaps too aware of the importance of such dinners and parties to his business and social status. As a girl, Lily was slightly in awe of Inara, and would seek her advice on how to dress, how to hold herself, and how to attend to guests. 

"Uh, Inara!" said Lily, obviously startled but quickly regaining her composure. "You're here for father, right? Come in!" 

She stood aside to let Inara in, then put her hand on the companion's elbow. "Father's in his suite, right this way," and without any more conversation Lily hustled Inara briskly through the front hall. They were halfway up the left stairway when both of them heard a gasp and a clatter from below.

"Oh," said Lily quietly. Inara turned just in time to see the back of another young woman, dressed in a blue velvet robe with brown fur trim, as she ran off, leaving some small electronic device in pieces on the stone floor. 

"I'm terribly sorry," Lily said to Inara, obviously forcing her voice to be calm and polite. "A troubled friend—I should see after her. Can you find your way to Father's? Just go through the second door you come to at the top of the stairs."

And with that, Lily scooped up her skirts with her right hand and ran down the stairs and across the hall with a speed and intensity Inara had last seen in Zoe. 

***

The ship was about to land, and Simon could not find a single one of his vests. His dress shirts were all there, down at the bottom of his bag, but no vests. And he had looked everywhere in his small room—under the bed, in the cabinet. Nothing.

The tangelo. That had impressed the captain, all the more so when Simon told him that he had never eaten one before—he'd had tangerines before, which the others had not, and the tangelo tasted sort of like one. It was good, juicy and sweet, and the others seemed a little bit in awe of it.

They had to look respectable for these people, so the captain wanted Simon and Book to tag along while he and Zoe met their contact. So here he was, five minutes before they had to meet the tangelo people and impress them with their respectability, and Simon could not find a vest anywhere.

A thought crawled into his mind: _If you aren't useful to them, they won't let River stay._

_River.___

"River!" Simon called out, opening the door to his room. The door across the hall opened up, and River tried to duck past. He blocked her way, and she retreated into her room with her hands before her face. "River, did you take my vests?" he asked, gently.

She furrowed her brow. "They're not _yours,_" she said.

"River, please," said Simon. "I need my vests."

"They're not, they don't belong to you. Not anymore," said River, with the air of someone trying to convey a message of great importance. "They're not _current._ They're not _up-to-date._"

"Now we're worried about fashion?" asked Simon. "Come on, River. I just need one." 

She frowned at him. "They don't work for you," she said.

Oh, Lord. Simon realized it was time to change tactics. "I'm just going to _borrow_ it," he said. "I just need it for this job—like a costume. You can keep it afterwards if you like, when I don't need to wear it."

She shrugged a bit, then pointed to where her mattress met the bed. Simon lifted the mattress, and sure enough, there were his vests, smoothly laid out on the bed's platform. His black jacket was in there too. He fished it out, along with a vest, put them on, and headed out the door.

"You bring those back in one piece!" River yelled after him.

The captain, Zoe, and Book were already in the cargo hold, and Simon felt the ship touch down as he joined them. Mal gave him kind of a look, either because he was late or because he was wearing his nice clothes, then pushed the button to open the cargo doors.

A wall of heat hit them. Simon immediately started sweating. His first impulse was to remove his jacket, but his shirt was white, and he would probably sweat through it by the time they met their contacts. He hurried down the ramp with the others—going outside was like walking into an oven. 

The sun was so bright, it took his eyes time to adjust. But there wasn't anything to see, really. A cliff face loomed up about 100 feet before them. Otherwise, they were on a plain, surrounded by tents. But they weren't quite tents. There were trees planted in rows in the ground, and over the trees, there were wide, white strips of fabric supported by simple metal frames. They looked like decorations for a funeral.

"Wash," said Mal into his walkie-talkie.

"Yeah, Captain," came the reply.

"Where are we?"

"At the coordinates you gave me, Mal."  
  


"But we're supposed to be at the edge of town," said Mal. "Wash, where's the gorram town?"

Simon's head began to hurt. How long would it take to get heatstroke out here? He heard the cargo doors close—someone on the ship had decided, sensibly enough, to shut out the heat. Simon wondered how long a person could last in this sun, which was so powerful, the rays almost hurt as they hit his skin. His lips and nose were drying out already. Zoe snapped her body around, and everyone turned to see what she had spotted. A small figure was walking toward them, enrobed in white and carrying a white parasol. For a brief, weird moment, Simon wondered if they had died.

But when the figure came closer, he saw—it was a girl, about River's age. She was more good-looking than pretty, with black eyes framed by long black lashes, a long face, and smooth olive skin. She looked bored.

"You Smith's people?" she asked.

"We are," said Mal. "I'm Captain Malcolm Reynolds."

"OK," she said, eyeing the group. "Wolf's not with you, right?"

"He could not make it this time," the captain replied.

The news seemed only to intensify the girl's boredom. "Follow me," she said resignedly, and began walking toward the cliff face.

"I'm sorry," Mal put his hand on the girl's shoulder and she turned around. "I'm supposed to meet a Mrs. Jedediah—"

"Mrs. Jedediah Li, yeah," said the girl. "That's my ma. Look, it's 108 degrees out here. You want to stay here with your heads uncovered, you're more than welcome to. I'm going inside." She turned back around and started walking again. The four of them looked at each other and followed.

Where were they going? Simon wondered. The girl walked along a path that led to what Simon realized was an enormous drape covering part of the cliff face. Without even looking behind her at them, the girl pulled the drape back and stepped behind it. Zoe and the captain exchanged worried glances, and Book put a hand across Simon's shoulder. "Let's wait for a second," he said. 

Zoe and Mal took position, with Zoe in front of the drape and Mal aside it, his back against the cliff face and his hand on his gun. With a nod, Zoe pulled back the drape, standing to the side as she pulled so that the drape would hide her body from the view of anyone standing behind it. Nothing happened. Mal took a quick look in the now-exposed tunnel. He looked again, for longer. Then he looked at Zoe, shrugged, and gestured to Simon and Book to come along.

The tunnel was broad, and noticeably cooler than outside. The drape—which looked to be plain fabric—filtered in enough light that Simon could see what looked like the fronts of buildings coming out of either side of the tunnel walls. "They've built their homes into the tunnels," he said to Book.

There was no sign of the girl, but then she re-emerged from the first building-front on the left and gestured at them. She had taken off the white robe and was wearing a simple gray shift. They walked into the building after her—the front had been built out with some sort of adobe brick. It was sizable, and filled with tables—obviously a restaurant, but not a very busy one. There was only a small group of four people seated at one table, talking with an older woman who was standing. 

The four were all wearing the same colored coat, and Simon caught a glimpse of something metal on the breast of one of the men's jacket when the girl called out in a loud, dull voice, "Ma! Lawmen! The smugglers are here!"

"Oh, Jasmine!" said the woman, and came over, followed by one of the lawmen. They both looked to be in their 50s, but while the woman was smiling and plump and clapping her hands in apparent delight to see them, the lawman glared at them, sizing them up like he was going to take all of them on. He was a touch rangier than Jayne but had the same imposing height and muscle. His curly hair was still mostly black and was cropped short; his broad, rough features were set in a scowl. He made Simon flinch instinctively.

"Don't panic," muttered Book, and smiled as the captain greeted the woman.

Right, right, act respectable. Simon took a breath and tried to smile, too, as the captain introduced himself. The woman was Mrs. Jedediah Li, and the man, well, the man was apparently the top lawman, Lawman Gui Ze Jude. 

Lawman Jude asked how Smith was in what was obviously a not terribly sincerely effort to be polite. Mrs. Li, however, was considerably more earnest in wanting to know if Wolf was "not in any sort of trouble, is he?"

"Well, I know Lawman Jude thinks I'm naïve," she said, upon hearing that Wolf was healthy and free as of two days ago. "But I did think that boy has a good heart—he just has some funny ideas. If he was put on the right _path_—"

"Forgive my confusion," Mal said to Jude. "But usually, I mean, usually the head lawman—"

"Doesn't know about the smuggling?" Jude said. "Trust me, you're not breaking any of _our _laws."

Simon tried not to make his relief too obvious. Of course, it was OK: These people wanted and probably needed the things Serenity had in its cargo hold. They wanted to sell their fruit. They weren't going to worry too much about what the Alliance thought about any of it. And Simon was just the respectable ship's respectable medic.

Indeed, the lawman seemed willing to orient the visitors—apparently the settlers were taking their siesta, sleeping out the hottest part of the what sounded like a very long day. In a few hours, everyone would be awake, the sun would be lower in the sky, and it would be cool enough to start the work of unloading and loading Serenity. 

At the same time, Mrs. Li—whose given name was Kerry—was asking Book if he was a prayer leader. He told her he was a shepherd, and she asked him if that was a special type of prayer leader. The bored looking girl, who had reappeared, walked past. "He's a Resurrectionist, Ma," she said, spicing the dullness of her voice with just a dash of contempt. "You can tell by the collar."

Mrs. Li laughed. "I can never keep all those off-world religions straight," she said, touching her head with her hand. "I say, as long as you're willing to submit to the will of God, you're fine with me." She was just raising the possibility that they might want to take some cornbread and marmalade back to the ship with them when he heard the yell.

"Simon!" came the voice, cutting through the chatter like a knell of doom. "Simon Tam!"

_________

TRANSLATIONS

Huang Jin: Chinese, "gold" (huang=yellow; jin=gold, treasure, money)

Jin You: Chinese, jin=gold, treasure, money; you=friend

hun dan: Chinese, "lout" 

Gui Ze: Chinese, "rules" (Jude is just there because it's a pun on Jude Law, OK?)


	3. Chapter 3

Inara walked up the remaining stairs slowly, peering over the railing to see if either Lily or the figure in velvet reappeared. They did not, and she took a moment before the doorway to Jin's quarters—his _suite_, she thought, I've been on board ship too long. His doorbell was shaped like an acorn, and she rang it briefly.

Jin opened the door. Some men, when they got older, just stopped trying. They put on weight, they abandoned good grooming, they let monkeys pick out their clothing. But not Jin. He was a tall, still-trim man with silver-and-black hair, which today as always was neatly clipped and impeccably styled. He was wearing a deep purple smoking jacket, belted at the waist, over silk pajama bottoms. The angular edges of the jacket gave his slim figure a decidedly dapper cast.

"_Inara__!_ " he said. "I'm just…I'm speechless. I knew that you were beautiful, but—"

He was, with all sincerity, struggling for words.

"Bu gan dang," said Inara, as they fondly embraced. Despite her humble words, she felt a quiet surge of pride. Jin never complained when you got it wrong, but he always let you know when you'd gotten it right.

Eventually, as she knew he would, he complimented her dress, saying that he especially liked the color. She smiled again. It was always best when they didn't know why they liked what they liked: Without the mystery, a companion's allure was just technique. And while good technique when recognized as such could generate admiration, it could never inspire passion.

They sat down on Jin's leather sofa, and he began spooning loose tea into a pot that was sitting on the wooden table.

"Jin!" said Inara, laughing. "Isn't that my job?"

"Oh, sorry," he said, moving the pot to her.

She looked at him slyly as she poured in the hot water. "You're not doing much to stop those rumors that you've had academy training," she teased.

He put his finger to his lips, smiling. "I guess I won't tell you about my dulcimer. So, did you see Lily on your way in?"

"Oh, yes," Inara said, after a moment's hesitation. Jin's greeting had put Lily and her mysterious friend quite out of Inara's mind. "She has grown into quite a sophisticated young lady."

"Is something wrong?" asked Jin—he had noticed, he always noticed, that was the downside of his attentiveness. "Oh. You met Tamara."

"Is that her name?" asked Inara. "I didn't exactly _meet _her—she saw us in the front hall and ran away. She seemed quite upset."

Jin sighed and threw up his arms. "Ah, Tamara is one of Lily's little wounded birds. She's Zelmich Amate's daughter—have you heard about that whole scandal?"

"Well, I know who Zelmich Amate _is_," said Inara. "He used to live on Sihnon." Zelmich Amate was a shipping magnate. Inara had never met him, but Xenia Brin, his personal companion, used to appear from time to time at the academy—one of a slew of older alumnae who would come and dazzle the students with their seemingly impossible glamour while instructing them on the finer points of table etiquette.

"Well, Zelmich has married his companion—and when his children protested, he kicked out of the house. He never gave them money of their own. And it seems never taught them a thing about budgeting or anything like that. It's been quite the scandal."

Jin said that lightly, as one who had been discussing said scandal on the cocktail circuit for weeks. But Inara was genuinely shocked.

"It surely is. I must say, I'm astounded. Xenia has been Zelmich Amate's personal companion for years! I met her when I was a student, and she always emphasized to us the need for someone in that position to get along well with the family and to protect their reputation from gossip. I'm just mortified that things would turn out this way!"

Jin took her hand and stroked it. "He didn't marry Xenia," he said. "It's some—I think she's 25 years old and just the most vulgar thing imaginable. She calls herself Desiree L'Amour, if you can believe it. Xenia's in the same boat as the children. Fortunately some years ago she made Zelmich buy her a property here on Pfalzenhoffer. It's in her name, otherwise the authorities would never let her stay. She's also been more prudent than the children with the money he gave her back when she was in his good graces. Spead is staying with her, although he's drinking like a soldier on leave nowadays. Tamara's decided that all companions are dreadful, so she's staying here—"

"Where she gets to meet the likes of me," Inara finished.

Jin put his hand to her face, gently. "Inara," he said. "Please don't feel that way. You are part of a wonderful, valuable tradition. You and Xenia, you are what companions are supposed to be—a help and a treasure. Seeing you, the joy you give me, it's just indescribable. I've so missed being with you."

He leaned over and kissed her warmly on the mouth.

It was almost an hour later and he was still kissing her, only now they were lying on the silky sheets of Jin's bed. As always, Jin had been a warm and attentive lover, vitally interested in her pleasure and remarkably appreciative of her charms. Inara felt a slight pang of guilt—she should have kept up with Jin, even after she left Sihnon. He had other homes, she should have made the effort. She had lost so much, there was so much she had to lose, why did she choose to lose him as well?

"Inara," Jin said. "This has been wonderful. And I hate to do this—"

"But you're going to have to ask me to go because of Tamara," she finished. He looked at her with surprise. "You've never taken me to bed this quickly before, Jin."

He rolled away from her on the bed and groaned. 

"I'm sympathetic to the child, of course, but this whole foolish thing about companions! I had the best three days planned out—there's a party tonight, and tomorrow a boat ride with a picnic on this lovely little island…." 

Jin turned his head to Inara. "She's quite emotional, you know. Lily is very concerned, and from what she tells me I think we may have to talk to a doctor."

"It's all right Jin, I understand," Inara said. He still looked troubled, so she touched him. "It's kind of you to take her in."

Jin rolled back to her and put his hand on her arm. "Maybe I can sneak out," he said, with a smile. "It's been ages since I climbed a wall to be with a beautiful woman."

Inara smiled back. "I'll keep my shuttle's com open." 

"You have such lovely smile, Inara, really. You are such a warm, wonderful person," he said, and moved in closer. "I think Tamara's fragile psyche could withstand another 15 minutes, don't you?"

***

Mal was chatting up the amicable lawman when he saw the two woman walk in. One was dark and had a long, thin face like the one who met them, but she was older, and what with the less-surly expression, considerably more attractive. The other had curly brown hair and freckled skin, and was also not in any way surly. The curly-haired one saw Simon and it was like an electric current ran through her—she stopped dead in her tracks and yelled, "Simon! Simon Tam!"

Anyone looking at her at that moment could see that she was glad to see him, but of course Zoe wasn't and put her hand to her gun before she turned and relaxed—Mal looked at the lawman and the lawman was looking at him, but he was pretty sure the fellow had noticed Zoe's reaction. 

Simon was frozen between them and the lady—his head was turned just far enough toward for her that she could catch his profile and recognize him, but not far enough so that he could see who was looking at him. He had a look on his face like he had just been run through the belly with a sword made of ice. It wouldn't take long for the lawman to notice him, too.

Mal nodded at him. "I think that pretty lady wants to speak with you, son."

Simon looked him, then his glace moved to Book, who also nodded. He turned to the lady. She shrieked. "Oh my God, Simon! It's you! It's really you!" she ran up and hugged him. The she turned to Mrs. Li who, come to think of it, was looking pretty gobsmacked herself, and said, "I know this man!"

"You know him?" Mrs. Li echoed her faintly.

"Annelore," said Simon. "How are you?"

"I know him! I know this man! This is Simon Tam! We went to the Capital City Medacad on Osiris together!" Annelore said, getting, if possible, even more excited.

"You know him," said Mrs. Li, again faintly.

"You know him!" exclaimed the woman who came in with Annelore.

"You know him?" asked the lawman. "He went to medacad with you?"

This was getting peculiar. "Yes, well, they know each other," said Mal. "Old classmates, yes. It's a small 'verse and all that. What say we head on back to our ship, and unload that—"

"You don't understand," said Annelore. "I know this man."

"So I hear," Mal said.

"Annelore, what's going on?" asked Simon. "I mean, yes, we know each other—knew really. Annelore—this is Annelore Hidalgo—was two years ahead of me at medacad, she was my peer advisor."

"And you were doing so well, too!" said Annelore. "How'd you finish—were you in the decimus?"

"Top three percent, actually—and you know that," said Simon. 

"No she doesn't," said the lawman.

"I don't. I don't know much of anything that happened after I graduated," said Annelore. "I have amnesia."

"This! This is a miracle! Oh, thank you God!" exclaimed Mrs. Li. She and the other woman—Mal was going to bet that she too was one of Mrs. Li's daughters—began hugging each other.

Simon started talking to Annelore in that damned jargon, and it took some doing to get him to speak to people in a way that they could understand. Basically, this Annelore had no recollection of things that happened more than a couple of weeks after she graduated from medacad—the last 6 years of her life were pretty much gone. And she couldn't remember nothing now for more than maybe a couple of hours at a stretch. She could doctor—she still remembered everything she had learned and apparently was very faithful with the note-taking—but she always had to have a helper around to remind her of who people were and where things were at.

"What caused this?" asked Simon. "Was it a" and then he went into a slew of words—Mal recognized "trauma" but that was about it.

"Any of those things could have—I don't know," replied Annelore. "Mrs. Li?"

"Oh, Lawman Jude can tell you," said Mrs. Li.

"It seems that, Annelore has an implant in her head to keep her from having fits," the lawman said. "She was pushed down a flight of stairs on Boros, hit her head, and the implant broke. It damaged that part of the brain that holds and makes memories."

"What?" asked Simon.

Annelore started laughing. "Who would have thought me of all people would get a gou shi Frampold implant put in her head? I must have been someplace on the Rim where they had nothing better."

"Who pushed her down the stairs?" asked Simon.

"A fed," replied the lawman.

They all were surprised by that, particularly Annelore. 

"Her advocate on Boros said that she was visiting the planet and was arrested because she was near a chemical warehouse that had just been robbed," the lawman continued.

"They thought I was a thief?" asked Annelore.

"They thought you were a terrorist," replied the lawman. "Apparently they're concerned about some group that calls itself the Red Dawn—bioterrorism. There's been medical supplies and chemicals stolen other places, and at this one hospital on Ariel, a bunch of drugs were taken and close to a dozen Alliance soldiers bled to death because of some weird virus."

Mal checked to see how Simon was taking this, but the doctor already looked so comic struck that nothing new registered on his face.

"You were dressed like someone from the Rim, and you said you was a doctress, so they arrested you. While you were being transferred to the interrogation room, this one fed—who had already made a name for himself beating folks up—pushed you down a flight of stairs. Your implant broke, and you lost your memory."

"And you was innocent!" exclaimed Mrs. Li.

"They never were able to find no cause to tie you to the crime. Crippling a doctress from the top medacad on Osiris surely got that fed fired—your advocate saw to that. And you were in a hospital on Boros."

"So how did she get here?" asked Simon.

"Well, that's where things get odd," replied the lawman. "A man from a transport ship got her released from the hospital into his care. He did it using paperwork signed by her parents."  
  


"That's impossible," said Simon.

"My parents are dead," said Annelore. "They were taken by cholera when I was 10 years old."

"I know," said the lawman. "That ship took you off of Boros before your advocate realized what was going on. Then, they ditched you here."

"Why would they do that?" asked Annelore.

The lawman looked down at his feet, scratched the back of his head, and looked at Mrs. Li. 

"Well?" she asked.

"Annelore," said Mrs. Li. "There are some things you are better off not remembering."

"One of the herdsmen found you. You were unconscious," the lawman continued. "The ship had taken off by then. We didn't know where you were from, and by the time you woke up, you couldn't tell us anything. We thought maybe they had whomped you on the head and that was why you couldn't remember nothing. We didn't find out different until the Alliance came. That ship got hit by Reavers. All six men we saw on board were killed."

"Why was I on Boros?" asked Annelore.

"We don't know," replied the lawman. "You didn't live there."

"You were probably buying medicine for your patients," replied Mrs. Li.

"So what you know is: Annelore was on the Rim, somewhere. She came to Boros for some reason, then was mysteriously taken here," said Simon. "I realize you probably don't have a lot of sophisticated investigative capabilities here—"

"_That's_ the truth," said the lawman. "Usually we can fix whatever's happened just by cracking whatever ship's on the ground." 

"—_but_ if the Alliance was helping you with your investigation, why don't you know more?" 

The lawman stifled a guffaw, and Mal already knew the answer. 

"The Alliance wasn't helping _us_ with our investigation, we had to help _them_ with theirs_. _That transport ship was discovered by an Alliance cruiser. Reavers—well of course, according to the Alliance, there ain't no Reavers, so some other gang of murdering maniacs—set a time-detonator to the ship's life-support system. It clicked on automatically when internal sensors detected warmth and movement. Ten minutes later—" 

The lawman made an explosive sound with his lips and gestured outward with his hands.

"Alliance lost something like 15 men and a couple of small ships, and their big ship was damaged. But the men had been sending a video feed to the main ship, and I watched it to verify that the bodies were those of the men who had come here. All six of those e mo were on that ship. Or at least their heads were."

"We were able to find out about Boros because that's where the ship was before it came here," said Mrs. Li. "That's how we found that Annelore had been there too and what had happened to her—her advocate was so worried. But that's as far as we've been able to get."

"Like you said," the lawman said to Simon, "we don't have a lot of fancy databases or great detecting gear—law enforcement around here usually translates into making sure people do their work assignments. Annelore ain't got no family. Most of the people she remembers from medacad we can't track down, and the few we've been able to find don't know nothing useful. 

"But someone like you," he put a hand on Simon's left shoulder, "you could help. You remember the years she has lost. You might know where people have moved to."

"You're a blessing from God!" exclaimed Mrs. Li, grabbing Simon's right hand.

Zao gao. "Well, that he is," said Mal. "So we're going to head on back to our ship with our little blessing, and you all can swing by when you're ready to pick up your stuff."

And with that, he grabbed Simon's right shoulder, pointed him to the door, and got the hell out of that gorram place.

______

TRANSLATIONS

Bu gan dang: Chinese, "I don't deserve it" (said in response to a compliment)

Amate: Latin, "love"

Desiree L'Amour: French, "wanted" and "love"

Spead Amate: A joke at the expense of poor Nathan Fillion, who posted to the fans to "Spead the Firefly love," and no, I can't let it go.

Hidalgo: Spanish, although now a not-uncommon name, hidalgo came from the phrase hijo de algo, "son of something," and was used to refer to people who were of obscure nobility.

decimus: Latin, "tenth," used here to mean top ten percent

gou shi: Chinese, "dog excrement"

e mo: Chinese, "fiend," "devil"

zao gao: Chinese, "damn!" "awful!"


	4. Chapter 4

The night had come and gone on Pfalzenhoffer, and the day was once again waning. Inara had not heard from Jin. Initially waiting for Jin to call was kind of exciting—there was this sense of adventure, like the two of them were kids who might be able to sneak out of the house for a tryst. But after a while the hope of seeing him again began to fade, and being alone in the shuttle got kind of boring. Since he had paid for three days, seeking other work was out of the question, and Inara felt obligated not to travel too far in case he called. Her neighbors were, of course, all working during the day. Inara wondered if they would even talk to her—they were mostly construction workers, working on short-term expansion or renovation projects at the estates, and were unlikely to have known many companions.

Around noon, she had finally called Xenia. Under the circumstances, a call on a fellow companion in distress would be expected—after all, what was the guild if not a sisterhood? And Xenia had been one of Inara's instructors, even if they were never close.

But she was from Sihnon: not a client, like Jin, who had doubtless been told some pleasant tale by House Madrassa, but a companion, so Inara had hesitated. It was silly—Xenia had left Sihnon well before Inara had, following Zelmich to one of his other homes. And she was probably too distracted by her own problems to care about Inara even if she did know. 

So Inara had rung Xenia, and the older woman had answered the call. She had looked just as Inara remembered, round eyes, high cheekbones, holding her shoulders back like a dancer. Her hair was now a dark red that complemented her pale skin, and while her skin was not unlined she still gave off an aura of glamour that brought Inara back to her Academy days. She remembered Xenia exclaiming to a group of students: "Being a companion is not a job. It is not a career. It is a _way_ of _life_—it's who you are, not what you do!" 

Once Inara explained who she was, Xenia said she remembered her face and invited Inara to visit that afternoon. Since her place wasn't really any further from the You estate than the docks, Inara agreed. 

Xenia's home was a single-story building made out of fieldstone and mortar located about half-a-mile from the docks. While Inara thought the house was quite shuai, what with its well-kept little front yard, she knew that by Pfalzenhoffer standards it was probably considered a hovel. 

Inside, the house was very clean, although Inara couldn't help but notice that most of the furniture was oversized and just a touch shabby—probably the cast-offs from whatever gargantuan castle Zelmich lived in with his new bride. Xenia seemed to be adjusting well to her reduced circumstances; she told Inara that she had been raised with two siblings in a one-room apartment on Persephone, and while Zelmich had bought her this house strictly to give her residency rights, she would sometimes stay in it when he was off-planet because it seemed cozier and "more human."

You didn't have to have companion training to realize that Xenia was both worried and upset. It didn't take much prompting for her to open up to Inara—she couldn't talk about the Amates to anybody on Pfalzenhoffer ("not even the other companions") without the risk of creating all the more fodder for gossip and scandal. But Inara gave her word as a companion that Xenia's confidences would be guarded, and since Inara didn't live there—well, Xenia needed to confide in _someone_. 

So she told all. "Zelmich's losing his mind," Xenia said. He had always been strong-willed and difficult—he was self-made, much like Xenia herself. But in the past two years, he had become increasingly erratic and forgetful—and he refused to see a doctor. Xenia's role had increasingly become one of a nurse, and she seriously doubted that Desiree L'Amour was going to be up to the task. 

His two children were also an enormous source of worry. Zelmich had divorced their mother a decade before when her drinking got so far out of control that she became an embarrassment to him. It was an acrimonious separation, and Tamara had never really embraced Xenia. Now that Desiree had caused the break with her father, Tamara wouldn't even see Xenia or talk to her "and I raised that child for six years!" Spead seemed to be following in his mother's footsteps—he was supposed to be staying with Xenia, but she hadn't seen him in four days and had no idea where he was. 

"We've always worried about his drinking," said Xenia, then shook her head. "Listen to me! _We _worry—that's a sad, self-deluded lie, isn't it? _I_ worry about the children. _I _worry. _Me. We _don't worry about anyone anymore, assuming _we _ever really did." 

She put her head in her hands.

"You know, Inara, people who don't like companions say that we don't care. That we have sex with people, and we don't care. But you know that's not true. A true companion—not some jian huo like Desiree L'Amour, but the real thing—cares. _We _care," she looked at Inara with despair in her eyes. "But _they_ don't."

And Inara just had no idea what to say.

Inara's shuttle never pinged her while she was at Xenia's, and Jin hadn't called during her flight back to the docks. The docks had a commissary that would deliver meals, so Inara ordered dinner and ate it alone in her shuttle. She tried to practice her calligraphy for a while and was just considering turning in early when her control panel lit up and began to ding. Inara gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror, then answered.

But the face that appeared was not of an older man. Inara realized with a start that she was speaking to Lily You.

"Lily!" she said, forcing herself to smile. "How are you?"

"Inara, hello," said Lily in a low, tense voice. "Can you meet me tomorrow?"

***

Simon kept silent until they were back on board, but the moment Kaylee sealed the doors he spoke. "Why can't I help her?" he asked Mal.

The captain turned around and looked at Simon like he had just grown two heads. "I would think that would be abundantly clear," he said. "The last thing you or your sister need is to have a passel of lawmen helping you poke through your past." 

Mal turned away and River ran up and demanded "her" vest back. "Not now, River! Not now!" Simon snapped, then walked after the captain and stood in front of him. "These people aren't Alliance. They barely have anything but fruit."

"Ah, yes, and that bounty on you and your sister would help them mightily with their situation, wouldn't it now?" Mal replied.

"What's going on?" asked Kaylee.

"The doctor's found an old friend from his medacad days," said the captain. "She's off in the head, and he wants to get us all pinched helping her out."

"Figures," muttered Jayne, returning to his workout.

Simon rolled his eyes. "I know we'd have to be careful. But I have to help Annelore. I owe her."

"Because of what happened on Ariel?" Mal asked. "Simon, we don't know for sure that's even the same thing."

"We did rob a hospital there. And those officers didn't sound like they were having a party."

Jayne cackled. 

"There was something I thought was odd about the arrest," Book said.

"Yes?" asked Simon, sensing an ally.

"She was arrested because they thought she belonged to the Red Dawn. Now that really was a terrorist group—but they were taken down back before you were born. Bioterrorists. Fanatics who believed that humanity should have died with Earth-That-Was."

"I love these little history lessons," said Wash.

Book gave a quick smile. "They were so tight-knit, you couldn't pay them to inform, and it took years to get someone on the inside. But they were all rounded up, it must have been 30 years ago."

"That's what they talk about back in the abbey?" Jayne asked, putting down his weights again. "The troublesome infiltrating of terrorist groups?"

"There's not much to do other than gossip," said Book.

"You think she was set up?" Mal asked Book.

"I think worse than that," Simon said. "That implant—only Frampold implants malfunction like that, all the newer models are safer. That's why Frampolds are so cheap."

"So, she was out on the Rim, and all they had…."

"Not possible. Annelore was from the Rim herself, her parents were sharecroppers before cholera killed them. I mean, think of it—they died of _cholera_ in this day and age. You can imagine the place she grew up was like.

"She wound up in an orphanage and started winning scholarships—that's how she managed to attend medacad. But she was very political, very aware of the gap. She was the only person on Osiris ever I knew who felt the war to unite the planets ended badly."

The captain's eyebrows went up, and Simon felt a glimmer of hope.

"She was also very gifted mechanically—very good with devices and implants. If she had chosen to pursue that, she would have made the Medical Elect in no time. She wanted to practice general medicine out on the Rim, though—she said all implant specialists ever did was shut down the hunger centers in the brains of anorexic socialites. My point is, she knew about the Frampolds. She knew better than anyone how dangerous they are, and she even petitioned to have them outlawed. She often said she'd rather put a bullet in her brain than a Frampold."

"So, you think someone did this to her on purpose?" Book asked.

"I do," said Simon. "When a Frampold malfunctions like that, it typically shorts out so that it stops working. If the person actually has a seizure disorder, it's not long before they start having seizures again—that plus the brain damage from the malfunction itself are why Frampolds are so dangerous. But no one said she'd had a seizure since she's been here. Either she's an atypical case, or she never had seizure problems in the first place."

"If what you're saying is true, that's certainly quite a misfortune for her," said Mal. "But it doesn't change the landscape here. Bottom line is, she doesn't know you're on the run, and if you tell her, she'll forget—she could put you in danger without even knowing she's done it. And if you help her, if you call up all your old buddies from medacad, you'll get pinched for sure."

"Not necessarily," said Simon. "I know who I can call. A lawyer friend of Annelore's from Osiris. His name is Sisyphus Ting."

"What makes you think you can trust him?" Mal asked.

"I called him before," said Simon. "Two years ago, when River was still in that academy, and I was trying to get her out. He put me in touch with Annelore then. She was always very political, very involved in organizations, some of them fairly radical—not, you know, bioterrorists or anything, but…I thought she might know someone who could help."

"And did she?"

"I don't know. I was contacted by that underground group about six weeks after I spoke to her—that may have been her doing, or it may not have been. All I know is, Sisyphus was a reliable contact, and he was discrete—I never saw any fallout from contacting him. He could help her, and he'd do it without letting anyone know about it."

The captain was about to say something when the banging started. Both Zoe and Jayne stepped over to the closed airlock, positioning themselves on either side and making Simon feel rather exposed as he dumbly stood in the middle of the hold. Mal looked at Zoe and nodded, and she opened up the doors to the cargo hold.

The doors opened to reveal what Simon assumed was the better part of the Li family—Kerry and the woman who had been with Annelore, who both looked upset, and Jasmine, who held a rough sack and looked vaguely irritated, most likely by the fact that she was being forced to see them all again.

"Captain Reynolds," called Kerry.

"What the hell's going on?" asked the second woman.

"Jian Kang, please. Swearing will cost you," Kerry said to her, then stepped forward to Mal. "Captain Reynolds, you left us."

"You ran out!" said Jian Kang. 

"Now, Captain, we're not making accusations, and we're not trying to cast your actions in a negative light. There's good in everyone."

"Especially in Annelore!" Jian Kang exclaimed. "God has not so abandoned that poor woman that she is without friends."

"Jian Kang, please!" said Kerry.

"Whatchya got in that bag there, little lady?" Jayne asked, and Simon realized with a start that he was talking to Jasmine. And that Jasmine was smiling at him.

"Cornbread and marmalade. Something for you to nabble on," said Jasmine, swaying a bit. A grin spread across Jayne's face.

"But you don't get any unless you help Annelore!" Jian Kang pointed her finger at Jayne. His grin disappeared and he looked at her through narrowed eyes.

This was getting out of control. "We're going to help," said Simon, quickly. Jasmine handed the bag to Jayne, taking longer than was entirely necessary to do it.

"We are," said Mal, with just a hint of a question in his voice.

"We are," Kaylee piped in, bless her. "We just need to be kind of, you know, quiet about it."

"Quiet?" asked Jian Kang.

"Discreet," said Simon.

"I can be discreet," Jayne said to Jasmine.

"Why?" asked Kerry.

"Ma, they're _smugglers,_" said Jasmine, without turning.

"But Lawman Jude doesn't care about _that,_" said Kerry.

"We'd just feel better if the doctor was allowed to make some inquiries—discreet inquiries—about Annelore without necessarily involving anyone who's in any law-enforcement type of role," said Mal.

Jian Kang glared at them, while Kerry had a fretful look on her face like she didn't want to believe bad things about such nice people, but…. 

"Simon _borrows_ things," said River, accusingly. She was standing by Smith's boxes, but strode over to grab the sleeve of Simon's jacket. "He _borrows _them, and then he doesn't give them _back._"

A light went on in Kerry and Jian Kang's heads. "Oh, you owe _money,_" said the older woman, and the two started laughing. Kerry walked over to Simon and patted him on the shoulder. "Trust me, you aren't the only person who's come to Glory of God one jump ahead of the bill collectors."

"Annelore always says, it's the richest kids who get in the worst trouble with money," Jian Kang said with a smile.

"I'm glad that's cleared up," said the captain.

"Where is Annelore, anyway?" asked Simon.

"She's back at the house with Jing Mei, don't worry," said Jian Kang. "That's one of my other sisters. She and I help out with the clinic and the medical stuff."

"One of us—me or my daughters—is with her at all times," said Kerry. Simon caught enough of Jasmine's expression to realize that this was not a duty all the Li women relished.

"Why is that?" he asked.

The question wiped the smiles off the Lis faces. Kerry suddenly looked like she was about to cry.

"Annelore is very, um, vulnerable the way she is now," said Jian Kang. "If someone does something to her and, you know, hides her afterwards, she doesn't know about it, and she doesn't know who did it."

"You said that she had been assaulted by those men on the ship," said Simon.

"That happened, yes," said Jian Kang. "There have also been two other—assaults. At first we thought that maybe it was another ship, but after the second time…."

"So is this why you're willing to risk maybe losing your doctor?" asked Mal.

"Yes, that. That and she's getting worse," said Jian Kang.

***

They had agreed to meet for tea—away from the You estate, of course. Lily had given Inara the coordinates for the tea shop and told her it was in a tall, silver building, which was a lucky thing because the shop had no sign, and aside from a nearby landing area surrounded by a screen of trees, there was nothing to indicate what it actually was. It looked like was a fat grain silo—a large silver cylinder polished to a brilliant shine that rose straight up out of the ground. It was about three stories tall and shaped just like the real thing, but it was too glossy and too perfectly smooth to be any silo Inara had ever seen on a real Rim world. Next to it was a large red-and-white barn that, like the silo, sparkled with cleanliness. There were no animals; instead, people walked casually from one building to the other.

One waved at her. It was Lily. She was wearing a high-necked dress with a long skirt and modestly flared sleeves that was made out of yellow-and-white checked cotton. She was carrying a plain wicker basket. Inara felt a sudden stab of insecurity about everything she had on—the off-the shoulder top, the velvet, the gold jewelry, the exposed navel. Everyone else, she realized, was dressed far more plainly, in cotton or with some of the men, suede leather. 

_The simple life of Pfalzenhoffer._ _Those outfits probably cost ten times what I'm wearing,_ Inara thought, as she and Lily smiled and air-kissed. 

They walked in through a door in the side of the silo. Inside, the outer wall was clear glass, giving the patrons a full view of the rolling pastures and trees that surrounded it. Inara and Lily were seated up on the third floor, with Lily asking for a table located at a remove from the other diners. They ordered tea and the fruit-and-cookies plate, which was costly, but according to Lily, excellent.

"I feel so badly about what's happened," said Lily. "I wanted to apologize for ruining your and Father's time together."

"Nonsense," Inara replied, biting delicately into a sweet berry. "I trust Tamara is feeling better."

Lily sighed and pulled her mouth to one side. "Not really. Not at all. I had hoped to take her out today and treat her, but she doesn't want to leave the house."

"She's afraid that if she leave, Jin will...?" Inara asked.

"She's afraid of that, she's afraid she might see a companion wherever she goes, she's afraid people will see her and gossip. She can't go on like this—Father's arranged to have a doctor come speak with her, maybe give her something. It's not healthy."

"You're a good friend," Inara said, reaching out and holding Lily's hand. Looking down at Lily's sleeve, Inara noticed that her dress wasn't simply a check printed onto fabric—it was made entirely of yellow-and-white ribbon, woven together. A small design had been embroidered onto every square.

"Thank you—you've always been so nice to me. So I wanted to kind of make things up to you. I wanted to treat Tamara by taking her to the day spa next door." Lily pointed over to the barn. Inara briefly wondered if the bathrooms were designed to resemble outhouses. "But since she won't go—would you be my guest instead? It's fantastic. They have the most decadent treatments imaginable. They exfoliate with fresh grapefruit, and they make a moisturizing mask with avocadoes—the real thing, they mash them into the mask right in front of you!"

"Sounds heavenly," Inara said. "It's a shame Tamara won't go with you."

"I can't believe it either," said Lily. "I mean, I thought I could help, but…. She won't even talk to Xenia, and she's almost like her stepmother. The whole thing about companions is just insane. There are companions everywhere, in our circles at least. You really can't function if you don't want to see them—it's like being afraid of security staff or something."

"Well, your father's extraordinarily open. It's fairly unusual that a client is honest with his children about that part of his life. I've guess I've always wondered why—"

"I never had a problem with it?" Lilly finished. "Well, I guess in a way it should bother me. Some would say that the healthy thing for Father to do would be to get on with his life, considering how long it's been since Mother passed. But Father's close friends tell me that he'll always be a one-woman man. I mean, he and my mother fell in love when they were 16 and married as soon as they were old enough to make it legal. When you're that age, you know, everything's so romantic. Plus my grandparents thought that they were too young and opposed the relationship, so there was this whole Romeo-and-Juliet situation where Father would crawl out the window and foil the security systems to see her. Romance _and_ adventure, plus true love and a happy marriage. I think he feels like that sort of thing—well, he can't replicate it, so why try? So I guess Father's use of companions doesn't bother me because it's sort of a tribute to her, to the love they had."

"Your mother sounds like an exceptional woman," Inara replied, keeping her voice casual. "Do you have a picture of her?" __

"Oh yes," said Lily, reaching into her wicker basket and pulling out a small book. She opened it to reveal a flat screen on the right-hand side and a collection of data spikes in the left. She pulled out the spike labeled "Album" and inserted it into the screen.

She thought for a moment. "Wedding reception," she said to the screen, then smiled at Inara. "I always like seeing that." 

Inara smiled back. Lily skipped the images forward for a little while, then turned the screen to Inara. The couple walking into the room looked familiar. Jin was much younger, of course, but was easily recognizable. The woman, though—she looked like something out of another still Inara had seen recently. Her nose was a little thinner and her jaw a little squarer, but the smile and the curly black hair, half-up-and-half-down, were familiar. She wore pearl studs in her ears and a chocker of fat pearls. Bright red sleeves flowed from the thin straps of her dress, placed so that they were almost off-the-shoulder. The thought came back to Inara like a mockery: _Most people notice the cut first, even if they think they notice the color._

"Thank you so much for showing that to me," she said to Lily.

"So will you come with me to the day spa?" Lily asked.

"I'm afraid I can't—I have some business to attend to," Inara said. "Perhaps you should ask a friend?"

***

This place was just darling. Here it was, the middle of the day and hot as the dickens—lucky thing she had her parasol—and everyone was just stirring to life. Kaylee had set up chair by Serenity, but curiosity soon pulled her nearer to the cave entrance, which by now had people coming in and out. Some were hauling out plants in pots—some looked like herbs but others had lovely flowers. Others were setting up what looked like open packing boxes lined on the inside with reflective foil, then placing pots of whatever needed cooking in the center. Still others were setting up solar chargers, attaching them to a variety of batteries.

Then the flap covering the entrance whipped open and about a dozen people came walking out—toward Kaylee. Two of them had badges. 

"Hi!" she said. "Are you ready to unload the cargo?"

The rest just nodded, but one of the lawmen—a blonde woman of slight build, stepped forward, smiled, and gave Kaylee a hearty shake of the hand. Her badge was attached to a tank top, which revealed a long, curvy scar across her collarbone. 

"Ya, you know us, don't you?" she said. She had a charming lilt to her voice, and Kaylee liked her immediately.

"Just follow me, then. I'm Kaylee."

"I'm Xastare. Xastare Baxshesh," said the lawman. "So what do you do on the ship, Kaylee?"

They reached Serenity, and Kaylee let them in. Xastare said howdy to Mal, Jayne, and Zoe, then asked to see the cargo. It was an odd mix of things, a lot of solar sheeting, portable solar-powered heaters, filters, parts, some medicine. The solar stuff got taken outside, and its voltage was checked with what Kaylee realized was homemade equipment. 

But she didn't get to watch things too closely. Jayne and the captain were keeping an eye on the goings-on outside anyway. And Kaylee was busy chatting with the very friendly Xastare. Like people often were, Xastare was curious that someone Kaylee's age would be a ship's mechanic—she really didn't look it, but Xastare was some 15 years older. So she was real curious about what all Kaylee knew about ships. 

They were interrupted by the other lawman, who told Xastare that the cargo checked out. "Great, I'll radio in for the mule—" Xastare said, then a loud ringing noise interrupted, and she rolled her eyes. "_After_ prayer!"

Then the lawmen walked out of the cargo hold to where the rest of their people were, and all the Glory of God people stopped what they were doing, got on their knees, pulled strings of beads out of their pockets, and began reciting prayers. 

It took the crew a moment to figure out what was going on—Kaylee peeked out through the cargo door to make sure Mal wasn't going to do anything obnoxious, then bowed her head and clasped her hands. She had no idea if she should be saying something out loud, or should get on her knees, or what. They were reciting something all at the same time—it was pretty complicated, the lawmen would say something, and the settlers would all reply. Kaylee decided against saying anything to mess it up, especially because she was so rattled that "Nows I lays me down to sleep" was the only prayer she could think of. 

Eventually they went quiet, but were obviously still praying—Mal almost said something, but Kaylee shook her head at him. A full minute went by, and then, just like that, the Glory of God people all got up and went back to what they had been doing, just  like nothing had happened.

But not for long. "You are people of God?" a voice called out. River stepped forward to the doorway of the cargo hold.

Kaylee opened her mouth to say something, but Xastare had already replied, "Yes, we submit to the will of God."

"Then you must burn her," said River, putting her hands together behind her back. "This girl reads minds and spins falsehoods. She's a witch, and you must purge the devil from her with fire."

There was dead silence, as Kaylee, Jayne, and Mal exchanged glances. Then the laughter began. "Oh, I see you brought an ostrich to trade!" one of the settlers shouted at the captain, clapping his shoulder, and they all laughed harder after that. River looked confused for a moment, then began laughing too, harder than the settlers, even.

"That's one coffee-wit you've got with you there, isn't it?" Xastare asked Kaylee. 

Kaylee was watching River, who was almost doubled over with laughter. It was a little alarming, really, how hard and how loud River was laughing. Louder, and louder, and louder River laughed, and all the settlers gradually stopped laughing and began looking at her. Then River abruptly stopped and looked at Kaylee with a lost expression on her face. 

"She's not all there, is she?" Xastare asked.

"Um, no," said Kaylee. "She's not, not all there, and people don't always react, you know, well to her. Sometimes people are a little unkind."

"People can be fools, now can't they?" Xastare said. She walked over to River. "We're a Godly people indeed, dear girleen. But we don't go about persecuting the wounded. Anyone comes at you with a notion to tie you up and set you on fire, you send them over to me."

Xastare lifted her sleeveless shirt, and Kaylee saw—oh, it must have been at least two pistols and a knife holster tucked into her pants, plus some other hardware. _Goodness,_ Kaylee thought, _she dresses like Jayne._

"God has not abandoned you, girleen," Xastare said, touching River's chin. "You remember that."

"I understand," River said, just like a normal girl. "I do read minds, however."

"Can you read mine now?" That was Mal, suddenly cutting in. His expression made it so that even Kaylee could read his thoughts.

"She can't," River said to him. "She'd get in trouble."

"Well, there you have it," said Mal. "Let's get on with things, shall we now?"

______

TRANSLATIONS

shaui: Chinese, "cute"

jian huo: Chinese, "hussy"

Sisyphus Ting: More heartless teasing of the unfortunate Nathan Fillion (I blame my keyboard), who noted that weeping at the DVD's special features was not a "sissy pants ting." 

Jian Kang: Chinese, "health"

Jing Mai: A character from the television show "ER." Sorry, couldn't resist.

Xastare Baxshesh. Persian (the first name should be spelled Xaastaare, but that's too funny-looking), "penance"


	5. Chapter 5

After Gimpy-Brain nearly rutted the deal—you would think that someone with psychic powers would know enough not to act all crazy in front of first-time buyers—the captain got Kaylee to put Little Miss Squash Rot away so that everyone could concentrate on business for a change. That skinny lawman with the big scar (and not much below it of interest to a man) radioed that the goods were good, the horse cart came, and the yokels got to loading. 

Since it was fresh produce they were hauling back, the yokels still had to pick it, and Flat As A Board told the captain that a work crew would be on it in a couple of hours. So Jayne had some time to kill and was wondering if it was worth his while to look up that juicy Jasmine when some feller came up to him and, a-stuttering and a-stammering, asked him for their shi.

"What?" Jayne asked, thinking that maybe River finally had a play-mate.

"I'd like to vacuum your septic tank, I'd like to do that," the feller replied. "We use it, we do, for fertilizer."

"You use shi?" Jayne asked.

"Black gold, gold," the feller said with a smile. He patted a metal tank he had strapped to cart that was pulled by a donkey. "We sterilize it and use it—best thing, best, best thing for crops."

This place was just too much, but if they wanted the shi…not like the crew was going to use it, and if it meant Jayne had to run the septic vac one less time, so much the better. 

Jayne wasn't going to let the feller poke around the ship unsupervised, though, so he followed the feller and his donkey back to the external septic port on the side of the ship. Jayne had to open the port, but the feller was handy enough with his equipment and soon had his pump going.

"So, I hear you're going to help the doctress," said the stammering feller. Jayne just shrugged in reply—he thought it was stupid, but whatever—and the man just kept yapping away. "She's a tremendous woman, you know. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. People think that her ailment is a bad thing, but I think it's a gift from God, a gift. Every day—several times a day now—every day, her mind is washed clean. She sees everything fresh; she greets everyone as an innocent, an innocent. There are so many people here who think, they think that they're pure and clean, that's what they think. They think they're pure. But she's the only one who actually _is._ She is an angel."

Well, if he wanted to talk about women. "What about the Li girls?" asked Jayne.

"Oh, they're the worst, worst," said the feller. "They act all innocent, but in their souls, in their souls, you know, they're as dirty as anyone. Dirty."

That was certainly good news. "And Jasmine?"

The feller laughed. "Oh, an ostrich, Jasmine's an ostrich," he said.

"Is that like a slut?" Jayne asked, hopefully.

"You mean a bint, right? Well, maybe, maybe so," said the feller. "I heard tell that there's been some to-do with some of the outsiders, including that other man of Smith's, Smith's man. But an ostrich is someone who's difficult, you know, difficult, restless, won't stay home."

"And roams around all night long, putting out?"

"Qing Jie! What are you doing?" It was Jasmine's sister, the po fu who wanted to take away the cornbread. 

She charged up to that feller like an angry bull, reached into a bag tied to the donkey, and pulled out a pair of plastic gloves. "_Put them on,_" she said, her voice quaking with fury.

The feller shot Jayne a look. "Yes, yes, yes, ma'am!" he said.

The po fu turned to Jayne. "I want to see your medic," she said.

***

Xastare wanted to show Kaylee the settlement, which Kaylee thought was real nice of her. She took the lawman up to the cockpit so's they could get the view from above. Simon, Wash, and Book were there, they had been trying to contact that friend of Annelore's Simon knew. They were looking a little down—apparently the law firm the friend worked for was closed because it was night local time.

"Where does he live?" asked Xastare.

"Well, the last time I tracked him down, he was in Sihnon," said Simon. "But he works for a big firm that has offices on several Core planets, so really, he could be anywhere."

"Sihnon!" Kaylee exclaimed. "Maybe he knows Inara! …And maybe if he does he wouldn't want to talk about it—sorry, that was a silly suggestion."

She turned to Xastare. "Inara's a companion."

"A companion?" Xastare said. "You travel in some exalted circles, don't you now?"

"Say, I was wondering if you could tell me what they're doing now to the crops," said Book.

Kaylee felt a little silly—they had come up to look out the window, and Book was the only one actually looking. And the landscape outside was fascinating: There had been row after row of that white fabric, but now Kaylee could see that workers were taking it down, revealing the familiar face of farmland.

"What are they doing?" Kaylee asked, fascinated.

"Oh, these folks, they are ingenious, don't you know," said Xastare. "The sun gets so strong during the long daylight that it'll cook the plants. So before everyone has their lighttime sleep, they put up sunshades. Except over there—well you won't be able to see it until all the shades come down, but they grow cactuses there and those you don't have to shade. And then when it gets cold during the dark, they use smudge pots—I don't know why they call them that, basically they're electrical heaters that charge up during the day. Most of ours are jerry-rigged, but your Smith got us some nice ones, all one piece with the solar panels attached and actual thermostats so you don't have to turn them on yourself—that'll be a timesaver."

"I guess when people on Pfalzenhoffer have their lavish outdoor galas celebrating the simple life, that's what they use," said Wash.

"What, is it like here? No wood to speak of?" asked Xastare.

"Not exactly," said Wash.

"I think the people there are kind of, you know, delicate," said Kaylee. "They wouldn't like the smoke."

Xastare laughed. "I suppose that's true. Anyway, these people here are just amazing farmers. Glory of God doesn't really have seasons, you know, so there's a whole thing they do with the shades and the heat levels to trick the trees into bearing fruit…."

"You're not from here," Book said.

"Oh, no," said Xastare. "I'm a pilgrim." 

"I was wondering," said Book. "You don't sound like the other settlers."

Xastare laughed again. "Wah! Yee et kin har, kin yee nooo? Izat ai no am frahm dem wirdly ya, ir whoat! Noaw poopa! I came here five years ago." 

Kaylee started, not sure if she was more perturbed by Xastare's sudden new way of speaking or the ease with which she returned to regular talk.

"You know, I have a question for you—you're a doctor, right?" Xastare was speaking to Simon, who nodded. "Smith's other man, Wolf, he suggested we grow some kind of drug, something called peyote."

"He did!" exclaimed Book. Simon looked confused—Kaylee knew she was. 

"Mescaline," Book said.

"The hallucinogen?" Simon asked.

"Well, I was wondering if maybe it had medicinal value," Xastare continued. "I mean, they grow some herbs for stuff like stomach problems or female trouble…." 

Kaylee's attention wandered off as they talked about drugs you could grow—Simon seemed to think it was, in general, a bad idea, something about not being able to control doses or something, while Xastare was arguing that not having the drugs at all was a bigger problem. Book was pointing out that they could make themselves a target for scavengers if they tried to grow them. 

Around and around it went. But outdoors, the shades were literally coming off, revealing row upon row of trees, and bushes, and vines, and oh, that was corn! You could tell it was dry land, the soil was crumbly in most places, but water was being released into channels that ran in lines along the plants, and where they were growing the soil looked dark, rich, and moist. The people were working like bees, some of them pulled down the shades right quick while others of them worked the plants, and everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. It was like watching fancy dancers on a ballroom floor. 

And there were animals too! People were leading donkeys and horses out of a cave that was located a ways further along the cliff face from where the people lived—it must be the stables. Donkeys and horses and, oh my God! A camel! Two camels!

Kaylee turned from the window to tell everyone about the camels, but they all looked so serious she stopped herself. 

"We weren't exactly friends," Simon was saying. "We were friend_ly, _but she was really more like a mentor to me. And I really needed one then, too—my prep school was good, but nothing like Capital City Medacad. It's the best medacad on Osiris, and it attracted people from everywhere, other planets, even. The competition to get in was amazing. I mean, I was really a star at prep, especially in the sciences—no one in my class could touch me. And then I went to this medacad where every single student there was were every bit as good as I was, and quite a few of them were a lot better, on River's level really—" 

He suddenly looked up at Xastare, and added, "before she got sick, she was really brilliant—and I just didn't know what to do. My first year, I lived next door to someone who had been top forward in the Capital City Novas before giving it up to attend medacad—because he was an amazing soccer player _and _an astounding medical scientist. He was getting _fan mail _from people begging him to give up medicine_. _I was nothing special."

He shrugged, and Xastare nodded sympathetically.

"Annelore really helped me overcome the intimidation factor, the fear I wasn't good enough. Just helped me get back in touch with what I was good at—work, concentration, cutting people with knives," he laughed. "When I would worry that I wasn't smart enough, she'd say, 'Oh, but you want to be a surgeon, right? Everyone knows they're not too bright. Look at your professors!' She had this great way of making things that seemed so difficult seem so attainable, like it was no big deal. Performing heart surgery, fixing a pump—all the same thing!"

Xastare was laughing and shaking her head, as she reached out to pat Simon's shoulder.

"Did she?" Kaylee asked, a little weakly. Everyone looked at her, which just made her feel more awkward. "I haven't met Simon's friend."

"Oh, she's a great lady," said Xastare. "And a real beauty, isn't she there?"

"I guess," said Simon. "But you know, it takes a lot more than prettiness to cut it at the medacad."

"I reckon it does," said Xastare. "In any case, she's been a boon and a salve to all of us here."

Kaylee shifted uncomfortably. Simon was obviously pondering the beautiful, angelic wonder of Annelore, whose brains and kindness certainly far outshined the prettiness of any girl he may of admired not so long ago. Kaylee wondered if Annelore had ever fixed a pump—not always so easy as some might think, even if they knew about implants and hearts and things. 

"And what about you, young lady?" Xastare suddenly asked Kaylee. "Are you willing to be a boon to us, or what?"

"Huh?" Kaylee asked.

"People say you're quite the whiz with ships, don't they now?" Xastare said, looking around and getting affirming nods from everyone—including Simon. "We could use advice from someone who knows ships the way you do. And we'd pay you—we can't give you tangelos, but we got pomegranates, honey, different kinds of oranges…."

"There's different kinds of oranges?" Kaylee asked.

"What do you use ships for?" Book asked.

"Shelter," Xastare said. "Mostly people live in the tunnels left from the azurinium mining, but the huntsmen and herdsmen live out, plus we've got a small settlement of folks at the coal pit a few miles from here. The tunnels protect people from the hot and cold, but when you're away from the cliffs, the best thing is a scrapped spaceship—they're insulated and all, and usually have freezer units and the like so you can keep supplies there. They can be real lifesavers when it's real hot or cold, don't you know? But most of our ships are damaged and real old—one-way specials that were used by pilgrims and such—and their power supplies aren't always reliable. So we wanted to be able to hook them into some solar panels, but we need someone who knows ships and their wiring."

"Absolutely!" said Kaylee. "I've got some schematics in my room—you need older ships, right?"

"Ya," said Xastare. "Oh but you know, Krak—I'm sorry, that's Shoef Kak, he's a lawman, we all call him Krak—he's gonna want newer ships as well."

"Great!" said Kaylee, and dashed off to her room, happy to be of use.

***

Simon was just about to ask Xastare why they would want schematics for newer ships when Jian Kang Li burst into the cockpit. Jayne was behind her, looking irritated, but once he saw Simon he waved his hand dismissively and went back down the hallway. 

"Simon," said Jian Kang. "Annelore wants to see you."

She looked so troubled Simon immediately asked if anything was wrong. The question seemed to surprise her, and she said no. Annelore had finished examining the settlers who claimed to be too sick to work, and now she simply had some time on her hands and wanted to see him.

"Does she remember our meeting?" Simon asked.

"No," said Jian Kang. "She wrote it down like she does. A huge note—practically a sign: Simon Tam's here!"

"You remember what we said about discretion?" Simon asked.

"I know—we could get that note burglariously," Jian Kang said. "The problem is, she gets excited about something, she writes more than one note, in case something happens to the one. Sometimes she hides them and writes on them stuff like, 'If you didn't see another note, that's because it was stolen,' and if she finds one of _those, _she gets real anxiferous. Eventually we do get all the notes and she forgets, but it can be an ugly business. I don't like to do it." 

"Maybe you can just talk her into writing smaller notes," Xastare said to Simon.

"Sounds reasonable," said Simon. He turned to Wash and Book. "Will you let me know when we hear back from Sisyphus's office?"

They nodded. "I'll run over," said Book.

"Ah, you don't have to do that," said Xastare. "Let me plug you into our system—you just let Central know, and they'll tell a lawman."

She sat down by the com, pulled a small black device out of her pocket, laid it on the com, and reached under the com to plug in two long wires attached to the device. "You see, you just flip this switch here," she pressed a button on the device, and the button lit up, "and you're live. Hello Central, this is Xastare on board Serenity."

A man's voice replied. "Xastare, you nimster! You've stolen those poor people's ship already?"

She laughed. "Now Krak, what would you say something like that for?" Kaylee walked into the increasingly-crowded cockpit, clutching an electronic pad and some papers, and Xastare smiled at her.  "Hey, their mech is willing to give a little clinic on ship's wiring, or what! So get ours and meet us at 'Durance right quick, will you now?" 

"Or what!" said the voice. Xastare laughed and hit the button again, and it went dark.

The four of them—Kaylee, Simon, Xastare and Jian Kang—went down the catwalk and out of the cargo hold. They stopped for a minute because Kaylee spotted a donkey drawing a cart, and she pet it and chatted a bit with its owner. 

The delay was brief, but it seemed to upset Jian Kang. Simon thought she was impatient for him to see Annelore—maybe she had been getting agitated? But then Xastare mentioned that Jian Kang seemed unhappy.

"It's Qing Jie," she said, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb at the donkey's owner. "He wasn't using his gloves. Xastare, you have to help me out on this one—you have to work on Jude. Ma's just charitable to a fault, and she won't bring it up with the council."

"And your dad?"

"Pa don't go to meetings 'less he has to."

"Well, you can see why your mom wouldn't be eager to bring it up, can't you now?" said Xastare. "I mean, it's been a little hard for Qing to find a place, and that's not a job that everybody wants to do."  
  


"But it matters that it's done right, especially now," said Jian Kang, glancing over her shoulder at Simon and Kaylee. "I mean, do you want him running the sterilizer if he can't even take the care to wear gloves? He's been in to see Annelore six times already since taking the job, and each time it's something that wouldn't of happened if he just follow the rules. None of the other sanimen have been in near so much. I don't know if he's just forgetful or sick of the idles or what, but he just seems contrary to me. I mean, he's vacuuming sewage off strange ship, and he doesn't wear his gloves? Nobody with any sense acts that way. Who knows where they've been, or what they've picked up?" 

She glanced at Simon and Kaylee again. "No offense," she said.

"Oh, none taken," said Simon. "Maybe it's Munchausen's syndrome." Jian Kang gave him a perplexed look. "It's a psychological disorder—people deliberately make themselves sick in order to get attention."

"That could be it. I always got the feeling he was kinda glad to be in the clinic," she said. "Is there a way to make it better?"

"Even with the full array of medication and counseling, it's a tough disorder to treat." 

Kaylee and Xastare peeled off; apparently they were going to a different cave, one called Endurance, while Simon and Jian Kang were going to the cave where Simon had first met Annelore, which was called Fortitude. 

Simon and Jian Kang discussed factitious disorders as they went in. Jian Kang was obviously concerned about sanitation and public health, but there were some gaping holes in her medical education—psychological disorders were pretty much new ground to her. Simon wondered if the Lis were going to be expected to be the doctors when Annelore departed.

They walked past the Lis' restaurant and further into the cave to a house front, set like the others into the wall of the cave and painted with a large, crude caduceus. "This is the Doctress' place," said Jian Kang with a smile.

They walked into an empty waiting area, and Jian Kang introduced Simon to Jing Mei, yet another Li sister who exuded the hearty warmth of a pediatrician. Simon asked if the three Li sisters were all, but apparently there were at least two more: Jafreema, who was a herdsman ("but she's a Fortitude herdsman" said Jing Mei, as though that was highly significant), and Juanna, who was married and lived in a cave called Resilience.

"But you'd better get in to see Annelore," said Jing Mei. "I don't think she quite believes you're real. She asked me if the writing on that note looked like hers."

Jian Kang opened an inner door to what was obviously an examination room and office. Annelore was sitting at a table, carefully reading through a large pile of notes. To one side was a single sheet, and even from the doorway Simon could make out the upside-down writing: "SIMON TAM IS HERE." 

Annelore was holding several sheets of what appeared to be someone's medical records in her hand and reading it with intense concentration. But when she looked up to see Simon, the pages fell to the floor and her mouth dropped open. 

"S-S-Simon Tam! Oh my God, Simon! It's really you!"

***

Mal stood outside the cargo hold doors and watched as a picker drove a horse-wagon loaded with fruit crates up to _Serenity. _The heat was very nearly bearable now, but Mal could see that the driver's clothes were soaked through with sweat. 

"He-ya!" a voice shouted near to Mal. He jumped. "The cargo is ready to load!"

It was, judging from his badge, another lawman, running a crew of about a dozen people. They came over to the ship, and as the crew unloaded the crates from the mule and sent the driver back for more, the lawman asked Mal where he wanted the boxes. Mal pointed out an area in the cargo hold.

Mal had shown them Smith's packing equipment and the instructions, and it didn't surprise him that they took to the process like fish to water—it couldn't be any more elaborate than these cheerleading routines they threw for God every five minutes. They ran the wipes over the fruit and checked the color. Then they pulled a plastic bag over each crate, ran the vacuum sealer, and slapped the label certifying that these fruits were hydroponically grown in accordance with Pfalzenhoffer's strictest standards over each seal. Then the crew lined up them crates in the cargo hold in neat little stacks.

"I hear you're going to help Annelore," a voice rumbled near Mal's ear.

Mal jumped again. It was Lawman Jude. The first thought that crossed Mal's brain was that this fellow was half an acre high. The second thought was that he had gotten up right next to Mal without making a sound.

"Yes, the doctor wants to help out his friend," said Mal. "In fact, he's on the Cortex right now."

"Hello, captain," said Simon, as he walked in through the cargo hold. Where had that boy been? Mal wondered. Mercifully, Simon went directly up the stairs and toward the cockpit.

"I'm sure he is," said the lawman. "Just as I'm sure you all are just a passel of loveable rouges who spend your spare time saving puppies and helping the weak and needy." 

They stood silently, if not entirely comfortably, for a moment.

"God is a wonderful thing," Lawman Jude said. The remark was a flat statement, not an invitation to discussion. "The wonderful thing about God is, he's so complex. He has so many faces, and those faces are reflected in those who worship him. For example, God can be loving and kind and forgiving and benevolent. And I think that face of God is reflected in Mrs. Jedediah Li—you could not find a warmer, more trusting soul anywhere, don't you agree?"

The lawman glanced at Mal. "She makes a fine cornbread," he said.

"Jedediah makes the cornbread," said the lawman. "Now about God. He has another side to him, a harsher side. God can bring misery and punishment. God can smite and rain fire. God can destroy cities and take away everything a man owns. And that's a face of God that someone like Mrs. Li doesn't reflect, and doesn't even know that much about. But she's not the only worshipper on this planet—here God has many, many worshippers."

"I have been quiet about this out of respect for you and your beliefs," Mal said. "But I think you should know that I do not believe in God."

"Of course not," said the lawman, with a smile. "But you fear him."

And with that he walked out of the ship.

As intimidators went, Mal had to admit that Lawman Jude was more than a little gifted. "What was that all about, sir?" said a voice by his ear, making Mal jump for the third gorram time that pretended morning.

It was Zoe. Mal decided to put a bell on her as soon as possible. It sure wouldn't be easy—he'd probably lose a finger or two in the process, but he'd had about enough with the sneakingness.

"I have just heard the most shocking, abominable thing," he said.

"What's that, sir?" Zoe asked.

"Mrs. Jedediah Li, crafty gui that she is, does not make her own cornbread."

"Who does make the cornbread?"

 "That would be Mr. Jedediah Li."

"And what's so shocking about that?" Zoe was not smiling.

_Zao__ gao_. "Absolutely nothing," said Mal. "Look, I'm going to go upstairs and check on our good doctor. Keep an eye on things down here?"

Mal took a quick detour to snag a piece of cornbread—whoever made it, it was gorram tasty and Mal had not had real cornbread in an age and a half. When he got to the cockpit, Simon and Wash were laughing heartily—probably at the notion of either of them ever doing what Mal told them. 

"Mal!" Wash exclaimed. "Success!"

"You found the doctor's friend," said Mal.

"Better than that!" Wash replied, and gestured to Simon.

"Oh, we've been quite fortunate. As luck would have it, Sisyphus has been transferred by his law firm—to Pfalzenhoffer. He's evidently done well enough serving the wealthy and powerful that he's been stationed on their vacation planet. In any case, we sent Inara a wave asking her to reach out to him."

"You did what?" Mal asked, sharply.

"Is that a problem?" asked Simon. "She's right there."

"She is pretty much discrete for a living," said Wash.

"Can you take it back?" Mal asked.

"I can't take it back, Captain. It's already been sent," Wash said.

"She doesn't have to help if she doesn't want to," said Simon.

"That's not the point," said Mal.

"What is the point?" Simon asked, a mite tetchy.

"The point is, we can't be involving Inara in our jobs. We have our jobs, and she has her jobs. They're different."

"Hers pay a lot better," Wash stage-whispered to Simon, who smiled.

Sometime Mal could just strangle Wash. "I'm serious," he said.

"I see that," said Simon. "But"—always a "but" with this one—"this isn't even a job. We're helping someone out. I think Inara would want to help, too."

"It's not a job, but it could be trouble, right? It's a risk. What's Inara's doing on this boat? She brings us respectability—she loses that, and she loses everything." Mal stopped himself. 

From their expressions, he could tell he wasn't reaching them. And that was because he wasn't telling them what mattered. So he started again. 

"One of these days, Inara's going to want to leave this boat. She's going to want to go back to her life—her respectable life. And she should be able to do that, she deserves that. Even if she wants to help now, we shouldn't ask her. Because one day, she's going to want to go back. And we shouldn't stop her. We can't. Don't use her on any more jobs. Ever." 

As Mal turned to leave, he spotted Wash shrugging comically to Simon. He found himself wondering as he walked down the stairs why Zoe had to marry such a gorram clown.

***

What kind of fish were these?

They were swimming and swimming around and around their little wooden aquarium. They didn't like it, River could tell, they wanted to be out in the open ocean, where they could swim straight. But here they were, all shut up in a little space, with nowhere to go but around.

But there _was _someplace else to go—_away. _They moved _away _from River as she came up. They grouped together at the other end of the aquarium. They looked at her from the sides of their heads—they weren't flounders, flounders had eyes on the tops of their heads, and they weren't rays then either. Their eyes were all to the sides, on the sides of their heads and with sideways pupils. They were very strange fish.

One of them opened its mouth. _Mwaaahhhh__._It said. The sound traveled well, because they were not in water. Another opened its mouth. _Mweeeehh__, _it said. Then they all began to do it. _Mwaahh__.__ Mweeeeeehheh. Mwaaahhh. Mwaaaaahh._ They were fish, and they were singing. What sort of fish sang like that?

Eventually they stopped, and started to swim around again, but keeping away from the side where River stood. She was getting bored with them when she felt the stink. It was an evil, awful, dark-green stink that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. It was filthy, putrefaction itself, she could smell it glob its slimy way toward her, an earsore. 

"Get away from me," she told the stink.

"What?" asked the stink, putting on an innocent act like her ears weren't already screaming with that stomach-churning rancid stench.

The fish didn't seem to mind the stink. Fish, remembered River, were stupid.

"Get _away_ from me," she said, loudly. You couldn't tolerate a stink like that. If you let it, it would stay in your clothes forever. "You are filthy, dirty, contaminated. You are disease. Rutting hun dan! Hou zi shi! Get the hell away from me!"

The stink backed off, although it was still there, a high-pitched whine at the very back of her throat that threatened to give her a headache, so River tried to relax by watching the fish. It was soothing, she remembered reading somewhere, to watch fish swim in an aquarium. Around, they would go, around and around

She knew Kaylee was coming, she could see her like a sparkler in the night without even looking up, but she kept watching the fish, denying herself the pleasure of fully seeing the brightness until the last moment, making it a little present she could surprise herself with. 

"Hey, girl, enjoying yourself?" Kaylee asked.

River looked at her and smiled. "You are so clean," she told Kaylee.

"Oh, please," said Kaylee, "I'm covered in grease! This fellow's four-wheeler broke down, and I was helping him fix—"

River burst out laughing. Sometimes Kaylee said the silliest things! Kaylee looked confused, though, so River thought she should explain. "Your _smell_ is clean," she said. She spoke a little loudly in order to shame the rutting stink. "Like springtime. Sweet perfume. A field full of flowers."

"Girl, I don't know how you can smell anything but sheep," said Kaylee, pointing at the fish. "Hey, does Simon or the captain or anyone know you're not on the ship?"

Sheep! That's what they were! River stared at them in amazement. Fleecy, baaing sheep! 

"Uh, River, maybe you shouldn't get too attached," Kaylee said, then whispered. "I think they might be dinner."

River rolled her eyes—oh, that Kaylee. "They're not _dinner,_" she said. "They're _sheep._"

______

TRANSLATIONS

shi: Chinese, "execrement"

bint: Arabic, "daughter"; the term has also entered British English, where it means "slut," which is the meaning used here. Interestingly, the word has no trampy connotations in Arabic, so if you Google it, you'll find a ton of G-rated Web sites about Arabic women and a small number of X-rated Web sites about British women.

po fu: Chinese, "shrew"

Shoef: Arabic, "look out!"

nimster: archaic English, "thief"

gui: Chinese, literally "ghost," but the implication is "sly"

hou zi shi: Chinese, "monkey excrement"


	6. Chapter 6

Kaylee brought River back to _Serenity_ to find the captain looking like a cross-eyed cricket. He was cranky for her not telling him where she went and why, even though Simon and Wash and Book knew. And then things were worse when he saw River—like Kaylee thought, she had snuck out, and nobody knew that she had gone planetside. But what did Mal expect from her?

Kaylee tucked the schematics behind a box and showed him the fruit she had earned, but that didn't seem to help much. River was acting odd too, she didn't seem to want to stay on the ship and wasn't paying attention to people when they talked to her. 

But there was good news. Inara had waved back, she had already found Annelore's friend and made an appointment with him. He had wanted to check her references, but Inara didn't expect trouble there—a fact that seemed to have some significance for the captain. Anyway, with any luck, Annelore's friend would be ready to hop on board when they landed at Pfalzenhoffer.

"Speaking of which, Captain," Zoe said. "Shouldn't we head off soon? The cargo's loaded."

"And it's perishable," Mal agreed.

So everything was ready to go, and Kaylee was excited about seeing Inara again and meeting Annelore's friend.

But then Simon piped up with, "So, you'll be going directly there and then coming back immediately?" and Kaylee knew, just in the pit of her stomach, that he was going to ask to stay. And sure he had his noble reasons: He was wanted to give the Li sisters a crash course in basic medicine, since they would be losing their doctor. But everyone knew that he also wanted to spend time with Annelore. 

And could she blame him? No, she couldn't blame Simon for caring about a sick friend, any more than she could blame him for not having romance foremost on his mind after he got shot by that bounty hunter. But it got under Kaylee's skin. She could feel whatever it was they had had slipping away. It was like an engine—some build-up here, a loose belt there, and all of a sudden you weren't going nowhere.

She kinda hoped the captain's bad mood would quash the idea, but he was agreeable. Kaylee wondered if they'd had an argument or something and Mal just wanted to get rid of Simon for a spell—that certainly seemed to be Jayne's reaction, he didn't even bother to conceal his joy at being without Simon and River for four whole days. Book had been sought out by some of the settlers who wanted him to preach for them, so he wanted to stay too. 

Then there was a clanging against the cargo doors, so Kaylee went to open them and discovered Lawman Jude looming in the entrance, giving them all a look of disappointment and disapproval that made her want to apologize about closing the doors to the ship behind her. 

The lawman headed straight up to Mal. Behind him were a group of settlers who fanned out into the hold —Kaylee recognized a couple from her time off the ship, and they gave her quick smiles and tiny waves like it was something they weren't supposed to do.

"So, I understand you're leaving for Pfalzenhoffer." Lawman Jude said it like an accusation.

"We're heading there, and then we're coming back, we hope with Annelore's friend," said Mal, a tad defensively.

"Yes, you are," said the lawman. "We've arranged another trade with Smith. He said he was quite pleased that your crew had made such an impression on his trading partners."

"Well, that's just wonderful," the captain replied. "We didn't know that, but some of my crew have already asked to stay, since the rest of us will only be running over to Pfalzenhoffer to get help for Annelore and then running back with that help as quick as our ship will take us. During that brief interval, Shepherd Book hopes to stay with you."

"Ah, you're leaving your shepherd behind," said Jude. "How unexpected."

"_And _our good doctor Simon is staying, since he hopes to help train people to take over from Annelore if we have to take her someplace else to help her. Which we'd be willing to do. And his sister is staying as well."

"Darlene?" one of the settlers asked.

"Girleen!" River shouted out from behind some of the cargo.

"Anyway," Mal said, "three of my crew—including our medic—want to stay here. With you. For the period when we're gone. Which won't be long because we will soon be coming back with help."

"How very noble of you," the lawman said. His expression hadn't changed a jot since he walked into the hold. "In that case, I'll just stay here until your three crewmen get their gear together. And remember to bring warm clothes—at night, it gets cold."

_No colder than this fellow,_ Kaylee thought.

So Simon and Book went back to their quarters, accompanied by several settlers. One of them, an older man who looked kinda familiar even though Kaylee knew she hadn't met him, walked up to Jude instead. "Ready, Jedediah?" Jude said.

And the two pulled out two sets of string from their pocket and began walking around the cargo and braiding. Kaylee was set to let them make their lanyards or whatever they were doing, but when Jedediah walked out from behind a stack of citrus crates, River followed, closely.

He finally noticed her, so Kaylee stepped over. "She's just curious about what you're doing," she said. "So am I, to tell the honest truth." 

He looked at her.

"Shhh," River said. "He's counting."

He looked at River and smiled. He held out the lanyard for them to see. 

"There," said River, pointing out various-colored knots in the lanyard. "Those are oranges, and those are lemons, and those are tangelos. It's a symbol."

"It's a contract and a record," said Jude. He was standing behind Kaylee, but she didn't hear him come up, so she jumped a bit. "One's for Smith, and one's for us." 

He held out his lanyard. "That," he said, pointing at the large, elaborate knot at the bottom, "that is my signature. I put it at both ends, so that if you try and alter it, say in order to conceal a little theft of the cargo, we'll know." 

He glared at Kaylee. Her mind instantly replayed every piece of food she had ever snuck off with as a kid.

Thankfully, Simon and Book and the other settlers walked back into the cargo hold, carrying their gear and River's. The three of them left the ship along with all the local folk—the two fellows looking a mite worried, River grinning sort of like a maniac.

_Serenity _took off for Pfalzenhoffer, and after checking on the engines and some of the conduits, Kaylee headed to her room. 

And there, waiting on her bed, were the  flowers—big, beautiful, colorful flowers, at least a dozen of them, all different types. Some were like super-daisies and some were trumpets, some were a single big blossom and some were puffballs made of tiny flowerets, and they were purple and orange and yellow and blue and dark red and white with little orange spots and purple stripes. 

_Simon, _she thought. How did he get these? Just when you thought he didn't hold you in his heart….

* * *

"Simon! Oh my God! Simon Tam! Oh my God!" 

Annelore had forgotten about Simon again, and judging from the near-hysterical pitch of her voice, she hadn't brought any of her notes with her during her visit to one of the more pregnant residents of Determination, so he was quite the surprise to her. Again.

"I know this man! I can't believe it! Simon Tam!"

They were going to have the exact same conversation again, Simon knew it. Which meant at least another half-hour of telling Annelore about how his finished medacad and glossing over everything that happened afterward before he could get back to Jain Kang's anatomy lesson.

He didn't want to think it, but in some ways dealing with Annelore was shaping up to be the most tiresome aspect of his stay on Glory of God. Her ability to form memories was seriously impaired—even if he stayed where she could see him, after about an hour she would forget everything he told her about his life after she graduated from medacad, and he'd have to tell it to her all again.

And he couldn't stay with her all the time—River couldn't even be in the same room as her. She appeared to be picking up on some of the damage that implant had done, or perhaps was still doing, to Annelore's brain. The first time she saw Annelore, she grabbed her head and wailed, saying there was a storm in Annelore's head, it was hurting her, and telling Annelore to make it stop. 

So Simon couldn't be with them both, and while Book and the Lis and the lawmen seemed willing to look after River, Simon was loathe to leave her alone for long—another reason why Annelore's quite genuine enthusiasm to see him and talk to him and be with him was more of a burden than it ought to be.

Other than that, Glory of God had been a reasonably pleasant place to spend time—no worse, really, than anywhere else on the Rim, and it was nice to take a little break from ship life. The Lis had rooms in their back of their inn for guests, which Kerry Li showed them with Jasmine reluctantly in tow. Their guests were rarely visitors from ships; instead, they were more often visitors from the coal pit or the huntsmen and herdsmen. But Kerry told them that they would in all likelihood be alone, assuring them somewhat cryptically that "'Durance is providing the meat just now."

The accommodations were primitive but adequate; the scarcity of wood meant that the furniture were either metal (Simon suspected that Kaylee could identify the machinery welded together to make the room's lone chair), or like the beds, rope woven onto a metal frame. 

They had a bathroom two doors down with running water, and although one couldn't adjust the temperature, it was reasonably warm at night and cool during the day. The water pipe ran alongside a pipe that carried steam to heat the rooms at night. The residents of the cave hedged their bets when it came to power, relying on coal to make steam heat, but using solar sheeting housed on top of the cliff to power electrical lights and equipment. Simon would have preferred if everything was electrical; the steam heat was noisy and could be adjusted only by throwing a blanket over the pipe.

Simon, Book, and River shared a room, although Kerry insisted that River's sleeping area be curtained off from the men. She also offered, with some insistence, to put River up with the sisters and Annelore in the Li family home. River had apparently decided that her name now was Girleen—"Girleen River" if pressed—and she told Simon that Girleen would sleep with the women. Simon and Book told her that she was River and should sleep with her crewmates, which seemed to convince her to room with them.

The remainder of the daylight hours had been largely uneventful, with the three settling in, and Simon exciting Annelore with the mere fact of his presence. The main exception had been the theft of some flowers. As Xastare had mentioned, people in the settlement took their horticulture very seriously. While growing flowers was considered merely a hobby, the florists of Fortitude were a particularly intense bunch, and the disappearance of about a dozen prime blooms was not taken lightly by any of them. 

What to Simon was the most disturbing element of the crime—the blossom thief had taken some of the flowers from inside people's homes—excited the least commentary among the locals, since doors could be bolted but actual locks were a rarity. But the theft itself generated considerable passion among its victims, and since Simon, River, and Book were outsiders, a certain amount of suspicion fell their way. Such a booty, however, would be impossible for them to hide in their belongings, and the florists soon began muttering about some of the love-struck youths inhabiting the cave. 

Simon quickly applied himself to the task of finding out what Jain Kang and Jing Mei did not know about medicine and determining what would be most useful to teach them. Annelore was a natural teacher, but as Simon had suspected, her instruction of the Lis had been haphazard—if they had asked about something, Annelore had explained it, but if they hadn't, she had not. 

Both women were adept at first aid; they noted that they had "a fine hand" before Annelore came along, and like many a medical student they had discovered that skills developed in handicraft translated pretty well into setting bones and stitching wounds. Jain Kang had a particular fascination with germs and what they called "smittlish conditions"—i.e. contagious disease—while Jing Mei was a more-than-competent midwife, a field in which she had been making a name for herself even before the arrival of Annelore. But as far as their knowledge of physiology and biochemistry…well, Simon shuddered to think of either woman trying to concoct and prescribe strong medications.

His efforts were periodically assisted or interrupted by Annelore, depending on the status of her memory. The other major interruption happened shortly after night fell—or after dark fell, as they said here, since they had one "night" that took place in broad daylight. Apparently field work was lagging a bit and it was starting to get cold outside, so the lawmen went through the cave and rounded up everyone who was idle to help out.

And Simon got caught up in the sweep. It was pointless to object that he knew nothing of farming—in response, Jian Kang told him, "There's a simple rule here: You don't sow, you don't reap." That meant if Simon wanted to eat food while on Glory of God, he should assist in the growing of it. 

River chose that moment to behave like a perfectly rational individual, so she too was pressed to help. They worked together, in theory so that Simon could keep an eye on her. But River seemed to know exactly what to do, showing Simon how to put up what in the daytime had served as sunshades, as well as erecting temporary walls of fabric, essentially making large tents for the crops. Then a lawman went through and activated the smudge pots, which glowed orange in the night through the fabric hives that surrounded them. 

River tapped his shoulder. "Come on, Simon," she said, and gestured. He followed her as she led the way through the crop tents, wondering if she was actually experiencing lucidity or if she was pretending to be lucid because she was pretending to be Girleen, and Girleen would be lucid. If she was pretending, was it good for her? Or would playing the part of a sane person lead to some disastrous identity crisis further on down the line? A breeze blew on Simon's face, carrying a sharper cold than the still-pleasant coolness outside and bringing Simon's mind to the fields around him. 

They had walked through the tents and were now standing in a clear space, surrounded on all sides by the fabric walls, white under the moonlight. A figure walked up to them. "Ah good," Xastare's voice sounded beside them. "I was just waiting for a couple of extra people, and here you are now." She handed them buckets.

They followed her to a pump, and she filled their buckets with water. Then they walked to where the ground had been dug into shallow trenches. The trenches shone slickly. 

"It's lined with plastic," said River, as she poured her bucket into a trench. "Be gentle."

_It's__ ice,_ thought Simon. _We're making ice._

He poured carefully.

* * *

_Boop__.__ Boop. Boop. _Went the ship.

_Time to get up, _thought Wash. __

He sat up at the side of the bed and shook his head. This was the downside of rushing to a planet—you couldn't pace your trip so that you got a full night's sleep. Wash turned the light on, took a breath, and stood up. The cobwebs quickly cleared as he pulled on his pants and thought about all he was going to have to do to land on Pfalzenhoffer. Getting up was never that hard for him.

For Zoe, however, it was another matter. She moaned and turned onto her stomach to get her face away from the light. "Time to get up, sweetie," Wash said, pulling on his shirt.

"Nmwmmph," Zoe replied.

"You have to," said Wash. "I have to get up so that we don't get shot down by the Alliance or crash into the planet. And you have to get up so that I have company, and so that you can stand around and look tough when we meet Smith's men."

"Jancnlooguff," said Zoe.

"Ah, but Jayne can't look tough the way that you look tough," said Wash. "He just looks scary. You, dearie, look both dangerous and sexy." He smacked her butt, and she turned over to protect it. 

Her eyes were still closed, but she was smiling and he knew she wouldn't fall back asleep now. He leaned over and gave her a kiss. "When you look tough, you're intimidating _and_ madly attractive. It confuses them and throws them off their game, giving us an immeasurable advantage. We can't rely on Jayne for _that._"

She chuckled and cracked open her eyes, putting her arm around his neck. "I think we should stay here," she said, and gave him a more serious kiss.

Oh, to not be approaching Pfalzenhoffer and its phalanx of heavily-armed Alliance ships. Wash pulled away. "We'll be back here soon. Count on it," he said, and climbed up the ladder to the hallway.

Thanks to Smith's well-drafted forgeries, they were legitimately (cough-cough) transporting a hold full of fruit, so instead of sneaking off to some isolated spot in the woods, they were cleared to land at one of Pfalzenhoffer's cargo docks where they could unload and load openly. Wash hailed Inara and gave her their coordinates—Annelore's friend had apparently been satisfied with her references and had agreed to come to Glory of God with them, so Inara was going to pick him up in her shuttle. He also hailed Smith, who was already waiting at the dock with his men.

They landed, and Smith satisfied himself that the cargo was full of juicy, germ-free goodness. Mal gave him the lawman's string with a laugh. The fruit was off-loaded into a refrigerated transport, and the new cargo for the settlers—some more heaters and equipment, including something what looked like a washing machine—was loaded on. 

After Smith and his crew left and before Inara showed, Wash and Zoe had some, um, quality marital time in the cockpit. As much as Wash missed the others, it was nice sometimes having fewer people around to walk in on them. Of course, they could just save it for their room, but when you were married to someone like Zoe, self-control was surprisingly weak as a force. Especially after Zoe did her dangerously sexy thing. 

Inara did arrive, however, so they broke it off to go back to the shuttle and meet Annelore's friend, Sisyphus Ting. He was a small, small man. And thin. And with stooped shoulders—kind of rabbity-looking, actually, with a quiet voice, too. The wire-rimmed glasses and thinning hair weren't helping much either, although when Sisyphus mentioned that he was a tax lawyer, Wash decided that it was probably a good thing that he looked about as harmless as a man could look—most people weren't eager to trust their finances to someone who looked like a knuckle-buster.

"Luckily at this time of year, it's not difficult for me to take an impromptu vacation," Sisyphus said. 

"So, did Inara bring you up to speed?" asked Zoe.

"More or less," Sisyphus said. "I've made some inquiries—discreet inquiries—but I wasn't able to find out much more than you already know. Annelore traveled around a lot, she was sort of a roving medic. Initially she worked with a lot of charities doing relief work on the Rim; she'd visit places where there was an outbreak and provide assistance. But she got disenchanted with that work—I think she felt like she wasn't able to improve people's lives in any meaningful sort of way. She stopped working for the charities and started traveling on her own. I think she was kind of depressed, frankly. She was certainly bitter, and she didn't much care for my choice of career. We had a lot of arguments about it. The last time I spoke to her was when Simon Tam asked me to contact her. I wound up leaving her a message on the Cortex, which she picked up, I think by chance. I've been wondering what happened to her since then—it sounds like she's in pretty bad shape."

"I think she's fine physically," said Mal. "The doctor's just not sure what's going on with her brain."

"I can't imagine there's much in the way of advanced medical care on a backwater like Glory of God. From what I hear, faith healing is their notion of advanced technology," Sisyphus smiled.

"They certainly don't have all the fine and fancible equipment available to the residents of Pfalzenhoffer," said Mal, unsmiling. "You know about the serious need Simon has for people not to go chatting about him."

Sisyphus held up a hand and smiled wider. "Then let's not chat about him. Captain, I'm a tax lawyer for the uberrich. I know all about discretion. I also suffer from a very useful medical condition—I'm selectively blind. For example, I don't even see whatever it is you've got in your cargo hold down there."

"That is useful," Mal said.

"Captain!" Jayne yelled up from the hold. "Visitor!"

They all headed down the stairs, except for Wash, who stayed on the catwalk in case he needed to get to the cockpit in a hurry. Looking over the railing, he saw a well-built young man with long, curly hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. Sisyphus was dressed well, but this fellow was a regular peacock, wearing a slightly-askew velvet tunic decorated with gold medals.

"So _this_ is Serenity!" said the young man. "Well, it's about what I expected. Dirty hold, flea-bitten crew, and oooh, questionable cargo—I don't suppose you have papers on this stuff? Not like those lovely forged documents you had for your fruit?"

_Zao__ gao,_ thought Wash.

"You look too rich to be a Fed," said Mal.

"You think I could possibly be a common soldier? I'm insulted," said the man, and walked past the captain a little unsteadily. _Renci__ de Fozu,_ thought Wash, _He's cappernoited. _

"You must be Inara!" said the man to Inara, who looked utterly baffled. "No dear, we haven't met. But I feel like I already know you, I've heard so much about you. I heard you met my lovely stepmother, and I _certainly_ heard about your visit to my extremely excitable sister."

"Spead?" Inara said. "Spead Amate? You should call Xenia—she's quite worried about you."

"Of course she is, that's her job! And a good companion always does her job, even when it doesn't pay anymore," he leaned forward and grabbed Inara's arm. "Tell me, compannie, do you like what the future holds?"

Mal grabbed Spead's arm and pulled him off Inara—luckily the young man moved easily. 

"Here's a question to you," said the captain. "Why are you on my ship?"

"Because I'm your passenger, that's why!" exclaimed Spead, suddenly giving the captain a hug. "I'm tired of the drinking and the partying and the drugs and the nubile heiresses—"

"Why would you get tired of that?" asked Jayne.

"And I want to start a new life. A clean life. On Glory of God. And you can take me there! I've got money, even," he groped around his tunic for a spell, pulled out a small velvet bag, and presented it to the captain with great ceremony. Mal snatched it with none and looked inside.

"There's only enough in here to get you there," said Mal.

"I'm not coming back!" said Spead, trying to give the captain another hug, which he sidestepped. "I'm going to become a new man!"

"Look, I don't think this is a good idea. This man is obviously drunk," it was Sisyphus.

"I'm not drunk. Who the hell are you?" asked Spead, instantly hostile.

"Oh, I'm Sisyphus Ting, I'm a tax lawyer with Burken, Tao Shui, and Burken. I'm staying at the Boahira estate," Sisyphus put his hand out.

"So you're the _help?_"the ferocity of Spead's contempt startled Wash. "And you're going to tell me what to do? Listen, _help, _I'm not _at_ anyone's estate, I'm not even _allowed _on my father's estate, but I don't have to leave Pfalzenhoffer—do you know why? I was _born_ here. My father was _born _here. His father was _born _here. I'm an Amate, for the love of Buddha, and do you know something? With just one single call I can make it so you are _never _allowed to set foot on Pfalzenhoffer again. You'll be kicked off the planet, disgraced at your firm—we'll see what happens to your career after that, _help_."

Sisyphus looked like he'd been slapped. Even from where he stood, Wash could see the thin man's hands shaking. 

_This man can really do that,_ thought Wash. _What can he do to us?_

"Look," said Spead, suddenly jovial again. "I'm not trying to ruin anyone's good times, OK? I just want to go to Glory of God, and Wolf told me you were going there. I don't care about anything else, and I'm paying! It's all happy and marvelous. I just want a chance to try a new outlook on life."

Mal looked at Inara. "You know his family?" he asked. She nodded. "Let them know who our passenger is—I don't want any missing persons bulletin going out."

"Mal," Inara replied. "He's drunk."

"Well, Glory of God ought to sober him up a bit." He shrugged. "It's not the worst choice of options for him." 

"Hooray!" said Spead, throwing his arms in the air. Everyone walked away.

_______

TRANSLATIONS

Renci de Fozu: Chinese, "merciful Buddha"

cappernoited: archaic English, "drunk"

Tao Shui: Chinese, "tax evasion"

Boahira: Arabic, "lake"


	7. Chapter 7

Their first sleep period on Glory of God had taken place after darkness fell. That had been followed by what was apparently the traditional "day" of something closer to rest—a period of activity in what was the middle of the planet's night. The cold and dark outside limited agricultural tasks, so the settlers remained in the caves, doing handiwork, meeting, conducting business, and attending prayer meetings. 

Residents of Fortitude who suffered from minor ailments or needed routine care went to see the doctor, but the schedule was light enough that Simon was able to attend Book's sermon. The presence of an outside shepherd was apparently something of a novelty—the sermon was well-attended, but Simon noted that most of the people there, himself and River included, did not take communion. 

Book had a warm and engaging speaking style, but Simon felt his attention wandering to his own moral quandary: Annelore. River was one thing—Simon would go to the ends of the galaxy to help her, even just a tiny bit. But Annelore was, to put it simply, not his sister. And River didn't insist on having the exact same conversation every time she saw Simon.

But who else was there to help? The Lis may have good intentions, but what could they do except observe the length of time Annelore could retain memories get ever shorter? Annelore had helped him out when he needed it—"I'm a sucker for the underdog," she had once said—and what really, was being asked of him? To smile when she saw him and screamed his name with excitement. To tell her, once again, that he had done well at the medacad, thank you very much. To explain to her that help was on its way. In a couple of "days," Serenity would return with Sisyphus, and Simon would be relieved of the burden of being the only person Annelore remembered.

He spent the rest of the dark day instructing the Li sisters and assisting with patient care. He had not slept well the previous "night"—Glory of God's sleep periods were somewhat out of synch with Serenity's—so at the end of the second day, he quickly fell into a deep sleep and had no idea what time it was when River shook him awake. 

"You'll have to bundle up," she said, and went back behind her curtain.

The door opened slowly. "Simon?" a voice whispered—Kerry Li. 

"I'm awake," Simon whispered back.

"Sorry to be upknocking you, but could you please come out? Xastare and Shoef need to see you."

Simon got to his feet, grabbed his shoes and coat, and quietly walked out. Standing in the hallway was Xastare and a man—a lawman—Simon hadn't seen before. He looked young, about Simon's age, but he was considerably taller and quite broad, as broad as Jayne although shorter than that ape. Despite his size, he had a looseness to his posture and an openness to his face that made him a far less intimidating figure than Lawman Jude or even Jayne.

"Simon?" the man said, offering his hand to shake. "Sorry about the upknocking. I'm Krak."

"We got a problem, and we think you might be able to help us, don't we now?" said Xastare. She looked a bit wound. "There's a ship that's landed."

"Serenity?" asked Simon.

She shook her head. "We don't know what it is—it landed some miles west of the cliffs, huntsmen saw it. They seem to not be wanting to be sociable, and in a case like this, we like to send a little party to reconnoiter. Since you're a medical person…."

"You want me to come along," said Simon.

"You'd be kept out of harm's way," said Krak. 

"That's fine," said Simon. "I'll do it."

"We'll be taking horses—they're quieter," said Krak.

"I rode dressage when I was younger," said Simon.

Krak looked completely baffled by that statement.

"I know how to ride a horse," said Simon, serving as his own translator.

He went back into the room to get more clothes and to tell Book where he was going. Book, a bit groggy, promised to look after River and Annelore. Simon finished dressing and went out into the hallway, where Kerry Li was at the ready with even more warm clothing. Xastare insisted that he take a knit hat that covered Simon's face all the way down to his neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, a pair of mittens, and two long, rectangular pieces of leather with laces dangling off them, all of which Simon carried as he walked with them out of Fortitude. 

The air was like a knife, and the breeze that was blowing, while not powerful, seemed to rob his ears and face of all their warmth in an instant. The sky was clear, and two nearby planets shone brightly in the sky, so there was light to see by. On the ground was either a dusting of light snow or a serious frost. He followed Xastare and Krak as they walked along the cliff face—it couldn't have been more than a few dozen yards, but Simon's legs were already hurting from the cold by the time he saw his companions duck into another cave. His gloves were evidently not up to the job; his pinky fingers felt like they were made out of ice, cold and unbendable.

Inside the cave that housed the stable there were two "smudge pots" and things were much warmer. Simon put on the mask and pulled the mittens over his gloves while one of the lawmen readied his horse. Counting Xastare and Krak, there were six lawmen, most of whom were already masked and all of whom seemed happy to have a medic with the crew who was not suffering from a serious brain injury. 

Simon held up the leather rectangles and asked a nearby lawman what they were. The lawman told him to mount his horse, and after Simon did so he wrapped and laced the leather around Simon's legs. "I do this for my boy," the lawman said, and Simon smiled weakly.

While the experience with the chaps didn't do much for Simon's pride, he nonetheless was better protected against the cold when they rode out of the cave. Past the cultivated fields—irrigated, Simon had learned, largely from an underwater aquifer—Glory of God was an arid world of low brush, grass, and cactus, glowing under the moons' light. 

Simon looked at the sky. It seemed a bit lighter than before, but he wasn't sure. The planets above were large and bright, and it could simply be that the sky here at night was lighter than what he was used to.

After riding along for about 15 minutes, Simon saw a structure. It was large and rounded, and it shone under the strong moonlight. They were almost upon it when Simon realized what it was—a spaceship, one with no lights. Its cargo door gaped open.

Just past the disabled spacecraft, the lawmen in front of Simon turned their horses sharply to the left. "Why are we turning?" Simon asked Xastare.

"We're going a roundabout way," she said. "The cover's better, don't you know?"

They rode several minutes more. The land was becoming hillier, and word passed down the line for the lawmen to turn off their coms. A hill rose sharply ahead of them, and the lawmen rode straight for it. At the bottom of the rise, they stopped and dismounted, and Xastare told him to be sure to keep his voice down as they continued up the hill on foot, leading their horses. Simon was following, a little off to the left from the main group, when suddenly he stepped on something that moved, and he fell, dropping his reins. Whatever he fell on moved more.

"I believe the law has arrived," said a woman's voice beneath him.

He rolled off. "Ah, you found our huntsmen," Krak said behind him.

The ground moved and then suddenly flipped back, revealing a man and a woman. If the dark smudges on their skin and clothing weren't clue enough, Simon's nostrils told him that they hadn't bathed in days, maybe weeks.

"Sorry," said Krak. "Did we wake you?"

Simon stepped back to where Xastare was standing, looking amused. "I thought huntsmen lived in junked ships," he said.

"Huntsmen are tough," Xastare said with a smile, but it faded as she looked at the sky. Simon looked up too—it was definitely getting lighter.

Krak was introducing the huntsmen to the lawmen. The man was called Mohammed, while the woman had the unlikely name of Chantal. They both had dark hair that looked to be about shoulder length, although Simon could not discount the possibility that their hair was much longer and simply looked short because it was so matted. 

Both of them were standing around in knit one-piece garments, a stark contrast to the lawmen, who were thoroughly bundled and had no skin exposed. While Simon could see that they had more clothes lying inside the large sheepskin sleeping bag he had stepped on, neither seemed to be in any hurry to get dressed.

Xastare, in contrast, seemed to be in quite the rush, and soon put the lash to the other lawmen. "Whose got the cameras?" she hissed, as they scrambled through their saddlebags. 

"They're in my bag," said Krak, who was standing next to Simon, looking completely unruffled.

"So what's with the gamflin," Xastare said. "We want to go the time fast, what now!"

Krak grinned and turned to Simon. "You've got to forgive Xastare. When she gets in a bustle, that's when you're sure to discover that she didn't grow up speaking no English."

"Wah, and you speak it so well, do you now? Fit right in in the Core, wouldn't you now," she snapped.

Her anxiety was not contagious: Krak grinned even wider and mouthed the word "Wah" to Simon, then strolled over to his saddlebag and pulled out a small black package. Xastare took it from him, then turned to another lawman who was holding a flat screen. She opened the package and removed three small devices.

"Let's give them a check."

"Do you want to do the suits first?" It was hard to be sure because of the bulky clothes and the mask, but judging from the voice, this particular lawman was also a woman, albeit one easily twice Xastare's size. 

"No, it's dark enough and I want to start with the watching, what now. I'll be far enough away, and there looks to be brush enough for cover."

Krak returned to his bag, and Xastare pulled two earphones out of her pocket, giving one to the lawman holding the screen and lifting her ski mask to put one in her own ear. Then she turned and walked up the hill. Just before reaching the crest, Simon saw her drop. 

The lawman holding the screen seemed calm—she even took a moment to introduce herself to Simon as Kissam Shorta, although her mask made that somewhat of a futile exercise. Simon stood so that he could see the screen as well. Initially, it was black, but after a few minutes, the left third of the screen came alive, showing a ship on the other side of the hill. The lawman muttered some words in a voice so low to be almost inaudible, and the camera's angle was adjusted. Eventually all three of the cameras were put into place, showing as broad a picture of the ship and the area immediately around it as possible.

Xastare walked back down the hill. 

"That's some nice surveillance and communications equipment you have there," Simon said. "Especially considering that you don't have running hot and cold water."

"Hey, we have running hot and cold water—it's hot during the dark and cold during the light!" Xastare said with a smile. 

Simon raised an eyebrow, then realized she probably couldn't see it thanks to the ski mask. But his body language apparently was enough.

"We do get some things from the Alliance," she said with a shrug. "I mean, technically speaking, we are law enforcement, and they are the law—or at least they think they are."

"Who is the law, then?" asked Simon.

"God," said Xastare, as though that was the obvious answer.

"Time for the suits?" asked Krak. 

"Ya," said Xastare. "Chantal, Mohammed, do you mind if I use your house for a second?"

"Help yourself," said Chantal, who had by this point donned a coat, but not buttoned it up. "But lemme get the weaponry out first."

She squatted down and rummaged around inside the bag, pulling out two long rifles that she handed to Mohammed, as well as a pistol and three knives—one of the was more like a machete—in sheathes. 

"Lovely weapons you have there," said Simon to Mohammed.

He shrugged. "These ain't mine," he said, indicating the rifles in his arms. "Chantal's the shot. I like knives."

He grinned. 

_Dentistry,_ thought Simon. _I've got to teach the Lis about dentistry._

Xastare took a package out of her saddlebag and ducked into the bag. Mohammed cleared his throat next to Simon, and Simon realized that all the men were deliberately turning their backs as she changed in the bag. Simon quickly did the same. 

"That's it!" said Xastare, and the men turned back around. She was wearing a skinsuit with some sort of hood. Krak got into the bag next, and it was Xastare, Kissam and Chantal's turn to pointedly look the other way as he changed into a similar suit.

"OK!" said Krak, and Xastare walked over to him. Krak pulled something small and metal away from his neck in his left hand. They held right hands, faced each other, and then began the muttered back-and-forth that Simon by now had recognized as the call-and-response of their prayers. Periodically first Krak, and then Xastare, would kiss the medallion Krak had around his neck.

"What's he got there?" asked Mohammed.

"It's a Barbara," said one of the lawmen.

Mohammed and Chantal both gasped. "He's got a _Barbara?_" asked Chantal.

"Yup," said another lawman, shorter than the first.

"What's a Barbara?" asked Simon.

"Barbara was a very special lady, especially blessed by God. She looked after The 43, them as was the founders of Glory of God," said the first lawman.

"So, she was a settler?" Simon asked.

That triggered a debate.

"No, no—them was all men."

"But she must have been someone's sister or wife."

"I heard she was someone on Earth-That-Was."  
  


"Really? I guess I always thought that she might have been a doctress or something."

"That could be."

"I've always seen it like, once the Prodigal got his hand blowed off, he was sitting in the hospital bed, and he must've been in a terrible funk. And he's saying, I wanna get off this lousy world, and leave this lousy place. And then this doctress, Barbara, says to him, she says, 'Hey, God has not abandoned you, why should you abandon—'"

The rest of this theological discussion was lost on Simon, because Xastare and Krak vanished. They didn't duck away, they didn't leave, they finished their little ceremony, pulled up their hoods, pulled down their face masks, and—_poof!_—they were gone. Of course, they weren't actually _gone_—it was a bit hard in the half-light but Simon could just make out the slight distortion in the landscape as they made their way up the hillside.

He put his hand over his mouth and pressed. _Don't ask. _He was a stranger here, really—an expendable stranger. What did he know about these people anyway? He could get shot or break his neck "by accident," or they could blame it on the people on the ship, and Mal would never be the wiser. 

Zao gao.

Simon knew about these suits—he had read about them back before he had gotten River out and his life had been turned upside-down. They were reserved for elite Alliance commando units, a regular soldier would never even get to touch one. Each suit was essentially a vid screen embedded with miniature cameras and fast, powerful processors—if you were lying on your stomach, the cameras on your front would capture images of the ground, the processors would instantaneously clean your shadow out, and the resulting image would appear on your back. If you were standing, sensors in the suit adjusted the image, so that it looked like you weren't even there. 

Maybe, _maybe _they had gotten the surveillance equipment the way Xastare had said—after all, Simon knew people who had better equipment as part of their estate-security systems. But there was no rutting way the lawmen of a backwater like Glory of God had obtained these suits through some sort of resource-sharing agreement with the Alliance.

"Hey, medic," said a lawman wearing a light-colored mask. "Wanna see?"

Simon jumped, then composed himself. The tall and short lawmen were entertaining the nodding huntsmen with a phrase-by-phrase retelling of Book's sermon, while a third was taking the horses down the hill. The remaining two were watching the surveillance screen. 

Simon joined them. "Can you make that any better? Use the infrared," said the lawman. 

"I _am,_" replied Kissam. She turned to Simon. "Can you see them? They're at the ship." 

Simon looked at the screen. There were no footsteps in frost-encrusted ground around the ship. _How is that even possible?_ Simon wondered—no heat, he could understand, but shouldn't the pressure from their weight—?

"Oh!" he said, and pointed to the underside of the ship. There was a slight movement over a painted stripe.

"That's Krak," said the lawman with the light mask. "He's doing the explosives."

"Explosives?" said Simon.

"Yea, in case they wanna leave and we don't want 'em to—it ain't so hard to make a ship so's you can't take it into space. And Xastare's up there," he indicated an area high up the side of the ship.

"How did she get there?" Simon asked. "Is the suit magnetized?"

"You'd think, wouldn't you? But magnets make too much of a ruckus. I think the suit helps a little, but that girl can crawl up anything. Her job's the bugs."

"Bugs." 

"Yeah, you know, listening devices."

Simon thought of Xastare, attaching devices to Serenity's com system, the settlers roaming about Serenity, "helping" him pack…. "Do you have any of those on board the ship I came in on?"

There was a moment's silence.

"No, no!"

"Oh, no!"

"No way, no."

"We was expecting you all—these folks are strangers. They haven't even tried to introduce themselves."

"This is just insurance."

"No reason for it with _your _ship."

"Naw. No reason at all."

"Nope."

Simon made a mental note to tell the crew about the bugs.

"They're up, and she's coming down," said Kissam, and the left camera zoomed in.

He watched the distortion make its way down the side of the ship. Once he knew what to look for, it wasn't that difficult—he could even see her reach for handholds. She reached the ground, and joined with the other distortion. They made their footprintless way across the frosty ground.

A few moments later their pale figures appeared on hillside several feet down from the ridge. Xastare walked up. "You see the tracks?" she asked Kissam.

"That I did, called it in."

She walked over to the huntsmen. "Hey folks. Did you hear motors while you were waiting for us?"

"Well, we was in the bag," said Chantal. "But I reckon we would have heard a regular motor."

"So they're using electrics or something else quiet. We should tell Central that, too," she said. Xastare tapped at the communications device still in her ear and muttered for a moment.

Simon looked at her. Of all the questions he had, only one really mattered. "What happens now?" he asked.

"Now we wait," she said.

***

Book woke up praying for Simon. It was an odd feeling, like part of some leftover dream, and it just added to the feeling of dislocation that came from waking up in a strange place at an unusual time of day.

He rolled over and looked at Simon's bed. Empty. Then the memory came back of Simon waking him up, telling him he was going with some lawmen, asking Book to look after River and Annelore.

River, as if on cue, hopped out from behind the curtain that separated her bed from theirs. "It's time to get up!" she exclaimed, entirely too happily, as she thrust her arms out from her side. She was fully dressed and looked washed.

"Well, you're certainly ready to go," said Book, with a smile. "I have to go to the washroom and change. Wait for me, and we'll go down to breakfast together."

River looked a little disappointed by his response. She was certainly taking to life here, maybe a little too enthusiastically. Of course, Book could say the same for himself. Glory of God brought out the evangelist in him—these people were _so close_. Prayerful and devout in their syncretism, but fundamentally ignorant of Christ's word. 

The so-called Resurrectionists, the settlement's small Christian sect, reminded Book of the early Christians, trying to spread the word of Christ's victory over the grave among people who viewed it—well, Book had to admit they didn't view it with hostility, but more with bemusement. The Resurrectionists had told him that most of the settlers saw Christ's rise from the dead a bit too prosaically, asking if he were a zombie or the like. There was an appeal to the notion of introducing the full meaning of Christ to these people, how He could mean a new life, a world not overwhelmed by death or loss, but filled with love and light.

There was an appeal, oh there certainly was. It was ironic, but when Book decided to leave the abbey, Glory of God was the type of place that, in his most optimistic moments, he envisioned winding up.

Of course, the Lord had laid out a different path for Book—a small ship, a mad girl. Book splashed water in his face and smiled. _For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts._

Ah, Isaiah. It wasn't what he had envisioned, but he had to confess that his small flock was an interesting one. Take the doctor. The intensity of Annelore's need for him was palatable whenever she saw him and called out his name—she was truly a lost soul, unsure who to trust. To her, Simon must seem like the only port in a blinding storm. 

Simon's ambivalence toward her was also obvious. Book knew compassion fatigue all too well, when you feel like you give and give and give, and a world of uncaring souls sucks you dry. When the world's victims become your enemies, when you have no more love to give, but only hardness and scorn. If you hid it from yourself, you denied the God of truth. If you hid your resentments and your self-centeredness, if you pretended they didn't exist and that you were perfect and Christlike rather than admitting that you were flawed, mere flesh and blood, in need of grace, it could take to you a darker side of yourself, something you wish you had never known.

But it wouldn't take Simon, not if Book could help it—or help out. He was glad that Simon had gone off with the lawmen. Annelore didn't remember Book, but she had recognized his collar before and knew he was a shepherd. She had been helped by shepherds after her parents passed on, so she seemed to take some solace in Book's presence.

Book prayed for her, and Simon, and River, and rest of the crew on their journey. Then he went back into the bedroom, got River, and went for breakfast in the restaurant.

It was really more like a canteen or cafeteria, a place where settlers who didn't want to cook came and ate what was offered. Breakfast was sausage and some sort of corn mush, and of course, fruit. It was delicious. They were up a little late by local standards—Kerry Li had suggested they take their time coming to breakfast because of the morning rush—so the dining area was largely empty. Kerry's husband, Jedediah, who was the head chef, was sitting out at a table, pulling some reeds out of a bowl filled with water and plaiting them. As Book and River ate, the reeds became a basket.

River finished eating, put down her spoon, and without a word ran over to where Jedediah sat. He looked at her, put down his half-finished handiwork, and handed her a wet reed.

Kerry bustled over to the table and picked up River's plate and spoon. "He'll keep her busy for a while yet," she said, indicating Jedediah with her chin.

"I hope she's not bothering him," said Book.

"Oh, he's loving it," she said with a smile.

"In that case," Book said. "Perhaps I should look in on Annelore."

"That'd be right kind of you," Kerry said. "Can I take your plate?"

Book handed her his plate and fork with a touch of guilt—he hadn't meant for her to be cleaning up after them. He went back to his room to get his gloves and coat, and walked out into the mining tunnel and toward the clinic. Before he got there he spotted Jing Mei Li and Annelore coming out the door.

"Is there an emergency?" Book asked, after introducing himself to Annelore.

"We got a message from Central," said Jing Mei. "There's a woman in her third trimester over in Determination, and she's having pain."  
  


"Our records indicate that she's prone to false labor, but at this stage in her pregnancy, it's best to have a look," Annelore told Book. 

"I'll come with you," Book said. 

"Do you have a medical background?" Annelore asked. Book shook his head. "Well, I'm sure you're presence will make the mother feel at ease—and maybe you'll have a baptism to perform!"

Jing Mei looked a little alarmed at the suggestion, which Book took to mean that most of the settlers didn't baptize their children. They pushed aside the curtain and walked out into the sunlight. It was nippy, and Book buttoned his coat and pulled on his gloves. Jing Mei led the way to the right, walking along the trail that ran underneath the cliff face.

Determination was one of the newer settlements, like the others a mining tunnel transformed into habitat. It was relatively far from Fortitude, about a 20-minute walk along the cliff face.

The men took them about 12 minutes out. The path followed the cliff face as it bowed in and made a cove, cutting off the view of the trail from either cave. At that spot, the orchard grew right up to the trail, so while Book had heard the low whine of their battery-powered motorcycles before the men appeared, he had assumed it was farm equipment. When they stepped out of the trees, he had for a moment thought they were settlers, working on the trees.

Their guns disabused him of that notion. There were three men, two with pistols, and one with a shotgun. Two of them had triad tattoos, and all of them were obviously old hands at this sort of thing. They were efficient and professional: One knocked Book in the gut with the butt-end of the shotgun, then gagged Annelore while the other two covered Book and Jing Mei with their pistols. 

They went into the trees, and Book got up to his feet with Jing Mei's help. He heard the whine of the bikes. "Get the lawmen," he said. "Run!"

She ran up the trail, and he ran into the trees. 

_Use your ears,_ he thought, as he slowed up. He couldn't let them see him—they had guns, and he did not. He listened, and ran toward the whine, pulling up when he saw a flash of movement behind a tree. They wouldn't cut straight out of the orchard, not if they were smart and didn't want to be followed easily. Instead they would use the cover, come out at some remote point so that it would take time for people to pick up their tracks. 

So at the moment, they were taking it slow, which was both good and bad for Book—they were easier to follow, but if he came up on them too quickly, well. He was sure his wouldn't be the first body they had left behind. 

The whining moved on and Book started running again. His knees were protesting a bit. And his breathing was a bit sore thanks to the hit he took. 

But he had them, yes he did. An old fox is still a fox.

When they came out of the orchard, Book hid behind a tree until they had disappeared from view, leaving a nice, obvious track in the sandy soil. Then he came out and started hollering, as loud as he could. When the horses appeared, he pulled off his coat and waved it over his head, yelling for the lawmen. The posse rode his way, and spotted the trail. 

One of the lawmen stopped and helped Book onto the back of his horse. Book remembered what Simon told him—a strange ship had landed, not terribly far away.

"They've got at least a ten-minute lead," Book said to the lawman. "And they're on motorcycles."

"Yup," said the lawman.

"We'll never get them before they reach their ship," Book said.

A faint boom echoed across the desert. A plume of smoke slowly rose up before them.

"Don't have to," said the lawman.

____

TRANSLATIONS

gamflin: archaic English, "goofing off"

Kissam Shorta: Arabic, "police station"

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, etc.: Isaiah 55: 8-9, RSV


	8. Chapter 8

The explosion was painfully loud, even with his hand over his ears, and Simon could feel the earth shudder. 

_Did they mean it to be that powerful? _he wondered.

He was the furthest away, in the bushes, with the shoulder of the hill between him and the explosion, and still it shook him. 

_They made a mistake,_ he thought. He could picture it in his mind, Krak had used a little too much explosive and the lawmen were lying on the ground, dazed and bleeding.

He was supposed to stay where he was until they called for him. "Medic's not much use if he's been shot, don't you know?" Xastare had told him. 

"You stay here, where you'll be safe," Krak had said.

Simon picked up his medical kit and ran toward the smoke.

He saw three lawmen lying on the ground behind a bush several yards away from the smoldering ship—laughing. _So, they're fine, _Simon thought as he dove down next to them. The ship had a gaping hole in it, which Simon realized was the cargo door, wide open.

He wondered if they were going to yell at him, but they were having too much fun for that. "Did ya see that?" Xastare asked him. "Barbara did us right proud, what now!"

"Hey, so," Krak leaned close to him. "Now, your mechanic said that by hitting the lines I did not only will they not be able to close the cargo door, but they won't be able to send communications to their buddies, either."

"Kaylee told you that," said Simon.

"Yeah," said Krak.

"Then it'll work," said Simon.

"Ooooh, ooh! We got movement!" said Xastare.

They flattened their bodies against the ground and waited, the lawmen with their guns at the ready, Simon feeling suddenly vulnerable with only his medical kit.

The two men burst out of the open door, each with a gun in his hand. They whirled around, looking for targets, then one spotted something, turned to the right, and pointed his gun. There was a _thuk_ and Simon saw a pink mass of brains come out the right side of the man's head. Another _thuk_and the second man fell, clutching his shoulder.

"Go!" shouted Krak, and the lawmen sprung up and ran forward. Simon grabbed his kit and ran forward as well—the one shot in the head was a lost cause, but he could probably save the other. He let the lawmen pull the man's gun out of his hand, then pulled off the man's coat. It looked like the bullet had gone right through the man's shoulder. He was still conscious and bellowing with pain—a promising sign that the lungs had not been hit. 

"Sir! Sir!" snapped Simon. The man stopped yelling and looked at him with confusion.

"I'm a medic, I'm here to help you," said Simon. "I need to take off your shirt."

The man still looked dazed, but he nodded, and Simon began to remove the patient's shirt. Suddenly Simon heard a _thwack _and the man began screaming again. He looked over and saw that the man's left knee was bent up. His left hand had been impaled into his calf with a knife.

"He was reaching for something in his boot," said Mohammed, who was standing about 10 feet away.

Krak stepped over, reached into the boot, and pulled out a small pistol. He looked at Simon with exasperation. "Could you at least let us search 'em before you try to save 'em?" 

"I'm sorry." Simon stood aside and let Krak pat the man down. "Is there an infirmary in the ship?" 

"I don't know yet," said Krak.

"Well, if there is one and it hasn't been blown up, I'd like to move this patient to it as soon as possible," said Simon, and returned to his patient. Since the patient was evidently uncooperative, he sedated him before offering further treatment.

But treatment of the shoulder wound was interrupted once again when Mohammed came over and put his hand out to the handle of the knife. 

Simon slapped the hand away. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "Don't pull it out yet!"

Mohammed looked taken aback. "But it's my knife," he said.

"And it's in _my _patient," Simon replied.

Chantal's disembodied head floated over accompanied by a rifle. Simon realized that she was wearing one of the camouflage suits and had probably been the sniper. He returned his attention to his patient. 

A lawman reported that the ship did indeed have a functioning infirmary, and two of the lawmen transported the patient there. The infirmary was well-equipped, particularly to treat trauma, and the multiple gunshot and knife scars on his patient suggested to Simon that the men on this ship had led a rather rough way of life. In any case, with the right tools, stopping the bleeding was simple—his patient would bear two more scars, and might not have quite the movement in his left hand that he once had, but he would live.

"How's Mo's knife?" a woman's voice asked behind him. 

"Bloody, but intact, a bit like our patient," Simon replied.

Chantal smiled. Oh, hygiene. "I'll wash it," Simon said. He washed the knife—it was made out of one piece of metal and shaped like a spade, sharp on both sides of one end. He handed it to Chantal and looked around.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

She gave a little laugh. "You missed that? They was talking right at you. Well, you was busy. Um, the lawmen took your horse and went to go meet up with the other lawmen and get your doctress back. Mo and I stayed here, but I sent Mo back to the cache to get us some food and the com—he needs to cool off a bit, I mean, that's his favorite throwing knife and the last feller who came between him and it—"

"We don't have a com?" Simon asked. "We don't have any way of contacting the others? What if the rest of the crew comes back?"

"We _do_ have a com. It's just over in the cache. That's where Mo and I keep our stuff. It's in a ship, you probably went by it on your way over here."

"Ah," said Simon. "And your com is there? As opposed to, say, being here?"

"Um, yeah. Look, don't tell the lawmen. We're supposed to carry the com at all times, otherwise they get upset, they say it's dangerous."

"I can't imagine why. So, when you were keeping watch on this ship, you didn't have a com. How did you tell…."

"Central?"

"Central, yes, thank you, how did you tell Central that a strange ship had landed?"

"Oh, we was trekking around when we saw it land, so we just trekked on over to the cache, let them know about it, then got the house and came over here. It didn't make no difference. Besides, coms are bulky and noisy and they tie you down, you know, like living in a ship or a cave or something—not that I don't love my cave, I do, I love the people there—but some of us, you know, we're ostriches and so we live with the ostriches and like the ostriches and off the ostriches."

"Can I see your right hand?" Simon asked.

Chantal showed it to him. Her pinky was completely gone, and her fourth finger had been severed at the first joint. "Hunting accident," she said, then smiled. "Don't affect my aim none, as your friend on that table there can testify."

_These people are very unlike the people where I grew up,_ thought Simon.

"Oh, hey!" Chantal said, clapping her hands together. "Time to pray!"

* * *

Book jumped off the horse when it stopped—the extra weight was doing the animal no good, and this looked like a situation where a shepherd could be of some assistance. In front of him, some of lawmen stood on foot. In front of them were the three kidnappers, also on foot, three motorcycles, and a sobbing Annelore with a pistol pushed up against her neck. In front of _them_ were six lawmen, two of them dismounted, and seven horses. One of the horses was carrying a dead body.

Book walked up to join the posse. He saw Annelore's eyes fix on his collar with something like hope.

"I'd say you're in kind of a tight situation," said Lawman Jude.

"We'll rutting kill her!" said one of the men. He was wearing green coat and holding the pistol not currently jammed into Annelore.

"Is that body one of theirs?" Book asked Jude, quietly.

"Yes," Jude replied.

"Look," Book said to the men. "Look where you are. Whatever you were planning to do, you can't possibly get away with it now. Be reasonable. Your friend there is dead. Hasn't there been enough killing?"

"Not enough for me, hun dan!" exclaimed the one in the green coat, pointing his gun at Book.

He didn't fire. "He's the one," Book said to Jude. "Take him down, and the whole operation folds like a house of cards."

"I think you're right," Jude said. 

"You're rutting going to let us go!" said the man holding Annelore.

Jude laughed, long and loud, and many of the lawmen joined in. "Go?" he asked. "Go where? There ain't no place to go on Glory of God except right back where you nabbed our doctress. And your ship ain't exactly in top flying condition."

"Then you get us another, gorram it!" said the man.

That suggestion was also greeted with peals of hearty laughter. The man holding Annelore let his gun drop. At that moment, a strapping young lawman on the other side of the hostage situation pulled up a slingshot and shot a gray wad at one of the motorbikes. When it hit the bike, the wad exploded, and the motorbike caught fire.

The explosion was greeted with oaths by the hostage-takers and hoots and laughter by the lawmen. "Really, Krak, shame on you. We could use those bikes," said Jude, waggling his finger.

The man in green pointed his gun at Annelore. "We will rutting kill your doctor!" he screamed.

"Oh, and do you really think we'd be treating you like this if we cared what happened to her?" Jude shouted back. "She's not going to be our doctor for long, no matter what happens here. She's only here 'cause she's sick. She'll get better, and go back to wherever it is she came from. Or she'll get worse, and be of no use at all. She's not _from _here, she's not _staying _here, and she doesn't _live _here. She's a sojourner, just like you all. Who'll mourn her? Not a one of us. You go ahead and shoot her, if that's what you want. It's not like we're going to have to make the trench for your corpses any bigger to fit hers in."

"Oh, Jesus," it was Annelore. Her face was contorted and her body wracked with fear. "Oh, Jesus please, I don't want to die. I don't know who any of you people are. Why are you doing this to me? My name Annelore Hidalgo, I'm a doctor, I've never hurt anybody. Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

"She doesn't know you're bluffing," Book said to Jude. 

"She ain't gonna remember none of this," Jude replied.

"Shepherd!" Annelore shrieked. "Dear Lord, you are a shepherd, please, please, please, talk to these people! Don't let them kill me! For the love of God, please, please help me!"

Book looked at Jude. Jude raised an eyebrow.

Book stepped forward, looking mournful. "I promise you, my child, I will ensure that you receive a proper burial."

Something snapped in her, and she went limp. It occurred to Book that while he had done some bad things in his life, this was quite possibly the cruelest. 

He could see the knowledge that their hostage was worthless ripple through the men. Not entirely surprisingly, it seemed to further enrage the one in the green jacket. He raised his gun toward the lawmen and stepped forward. "Shoot!" he screamed. "Shoot and be damned!"

But they didn't have to. The one holding Annelore suddenly released her, ran up behind the one in the green jacket, and struck him in the back of the head with his pistol. He and the third man threw down their guns and put up their hands. "We never wanted her dead," he said.

Annelore lay on the ground, where she had fallen when she was released. She was weeping and shaking, utterly despondent and terrified. But she was alive.

_For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord._

* * *

Xastare and Krak came back just as Simon, Chantal, and Mohammed were finishing their surprisingly tasty ostrich steaks. Ostriches, Simon had learned, had been brought to Glory of God early on in the settlement's history as a source of meat, eggs, and leather. But they proved impossible for the settlers to domesticate, and they were turned loose. Eventually they became the domain of the huntsmen, who were the people who felt that life in the caves was too constricting.

The lawmen had ridden the outlaws' bikes back to the ship—their horses and Simon's were apparently now being used for prisoner transport. Simon considered asking what became of the dead body, but decided he'd rather not know.

The lawmen excitedly reported that Annelore was fine, that Krak got to blow up a motor bike, and that Book had spoken with such spellbinding conviction that he had mesmerized the outlaws into turning on each other. One of the kidnappers had taken a crack to the head as a result, but Xastare fully expected Annelore to be able to tend to him "just as soon as she calms down and forgets a few things, don't you know?"

There was the ritual Prayer of Thanksgiving, followed by the ritual Looting of the Ship—Chantal and Mohammed were awarded their pick of rations as reward for their service, firearms were appropriated, and the rest was evaluated for later pillage. They found a trailer hitch for one of the bikes, and Simon had to argue the case for bringing his patient back to the caves before any booty. He half-won: They loaded Simon's patient on the trailer along with a couple of especially choice pieces of furniture, took their leave of the huntsmen, and headed back to what Chantal and Mohammed no doubt dreaded as civilization.

Krak drove the bike with the trailer, so Simon rode on Xastare's bike. The two were bantering and almost insufferably merry; apparently nothing made them happier than a day spent getting shot at and blowing things up. Simon was more concerned about his patient being bounced around the trailer and having a chair fall on him—half the time he couldn't even see his patient, and once he almost fell of the motorcycle straining to check.

He was trying to get another peek when Krak shouted something to him about Kaylee. "What?" Simon asked.

"I said, 'What about Kaylee?'" said Krak.

"What about her?" asked Simon.

"Ah, you've been ignoring us, haven't you now?" asked Xastare.

"Well, I'm a little concerned about my patient," confessed Simon.

"Well, we are discussing affairs of the heart, which should be a concern of a man your age as well, don't you know? Now, Krak here is in love with Jian Kang Li—"

"I am not!" Krak replied.

"But he's in denial, insisting that he wants a woman who is milder. Now I say, were that true, he'd show the least interest in Jing Mei Li, who we both know is just as pretty as her sister but has a more gentle soul. But he thinks she's boring. So now he's saying that he is a great admirer of hers. So he was wondering what your thoughts are on the matter."

"Um, well, I, um—my thoughts on Kaylee?"

"You're thoughts on Krak pursuing Kaylee," Xastare said.

_I don't like that much at all,_ thought Simon. He was briefly tempted to tell Krak about that 14-year-old Kaylee got in so much trouble with, but decided against it. That would be too petty, and River probably shouldn't have told him about it in the first place. 

"_I _think, if Krak pursues Kaylee, then you should consider pursuing Jain Kang," said Xastare. "I mean, think—she's pretty, and you're _very_ handsome. I'll grant Krak that she can be a little picky, but you have such _fine _manners, that shouldn't be a problem. And then there's the whole shared-interest-in-medicine thing."

She was shouting, and Simon realized that this was all being for Krak's benefit.

"I guess I really do have a shot," said Simon, just as loudly. "After all, I've been sort of mentoring her, and that can easily be the first step toward—"

"You've been what? Mentoring her?" Krak interrupted. "What does mentoring mean?"

"I don't know, but it sure sounds attractive," said Xastare.

They rode on in silence for a few moments. 

"Maybe you oughtn't to be mentoring her so much," Krak said to Simon.

Xastare burst out laughing. "I knew it! It's love! Oh, in the old days we just would have given you two a strong drink of whiskey and locked you in a room together!"

Krak found that comment hysterically funny for some reason. Simon just hoped that his good humor meant that the much larger man wasn't prone to jealous rages.

They had reached the cultivated areas and drove along paths through the fields until they reached Fortitude. Simon and Xastare dismounted, pulling back the cloth so that Krak could drive the trailer into the tunnel. He drove slowly up to the clinic, and the lawmen helped Simon get the patient settled—if by "settled" you mean "manacled to a bed frame."

Both Jain Kang and Jing Mei were there; Annelore, they said, was back at the Li household. She had been so upset by the kidnapping that they had slipped her a sedative—in part to ward off another spate of note-writing—and she was now resting and forgetting under the watchful eye of their mother. 

Simon was feeling a bit drained as well, and he gladly accepted their offer to take over monitoring his patient. Xastare, who had left, returned with a lawman to serve as guard, so with his patient under the various types of supervision, Simon departed the clinic with Xastare and Krak.

He had planned to take his leave of them and lie down, but Krak mentioned the prisoner who had been hit on the head. He had woken up and was being held with the other men in the local jail. Given the general lack of concern for the well-being of his gunshot patient, Simon felt obligated to look over the one who had been hit. 

The prison was practically a dungeon, with the men each being held in a separate, tiny cell carved directly into the tunnel wall. There were benches cut into the wall of each for them to lie or sit on and room to stand, but barely any room to walk. Aside from the three men, there were no prisoners. Simon had to conduct his examination through the bars of the cell, with a guard aiming a pistol at his patient the entire time. The man seemed all right, if there was a concussion it was mild. Simon left a list of symptoms with the guard, with instruction that a doctor be contacted immediately if any arose, but he was fairly skeptical that his instructions would be followed and made a mental note to visit the patient later on.

The jail was part of the lawmen's office, and as Simon was walking out, he heard Xastare say, "Krak! We got idents on our sojourners."

"Shiny!" Krak replied. "Let's see what kind of warrants the Alliance has out on our sojourners!"

His hands went cold. So much for rest.

"Oh, hey," Simon said, trying to act casual. "You can do that?" He followed them as they walked into a side room, hoping he looked curious and innocent. The room contained a console with a screen that looked both familiar and out-of-place.

"Did you get that off a ship?" Simon asked.

"Oh ya," said Xastare. "I mean, we don't want to be making official inquiries just yet. This way we're just a random bounty hunter looking up some info, not you know, law enforcement seeking the assistance of the Alliance."

"We generally like to clean up a bit before we have company over," said Krak with a smile. He sat down in front of the console, Xastare handing him a list, and he began typing.

They were still in high spirits and ooh'd and ahh'd jokingly as the warrants and bounties on each of the men came down. They were, as Simon surmised, old hands at living on the wrong side of the law, although their area of expertise was smuggling—particularly weapons. This led to an excited discussion regarding plunder from the ship—apparently the cargo had included restricted laser rifles, items of little use to the settlers but of great interest to the Alliance. That meant that other items on the ship, plus the disabled ship itself, could in all probability be kept.

"Normally, for kidnapping, they'd all be with God right now," Krak told Simon. "But they did surrender, so we may just turn all or some of them over to the Alliance."

"The one who clonked the other I think will wind up with the Alliance," said Xastare. "But really, it's up to the elders."

None of the men had ever been charged with kidnapping or rape, which the lawmen found somewhat puzzling. Simon volunteered the theory that they were looking for someone with medical expertise to staff their infirmary, which they seemed to consider plausible.

"Hey," said Krak, turning back to the console. "Let's look you up."

"Sure!" said Xastare.

Little spots appeared before Simon's eyes, and waves of hot and cold ran up and down his body. 

"What was it again?" Krak asked.

"BettyLu—that's with a capital 'l'—McDoogle," she said.

"M-c or m-a-c?" Krak asked.

"M-c," Xastare replied, and Simon realized with a sudden jolt of relief mixed with shock just who they were looking up. "What's it say?"

"Oh, ho!" said Krak, delighted. "It says that you are a burglarious nimster and a devious magsman, a threat to all honest, decent people with your footpaddery and callifudges!"

She looked over her shoulder and clicked her tongue. "You think they'd let at least some of that go by now."

"Never steal from the rich, Xastare!" said Krak.

"But that's where the money is," she said.

"Wait, wait, wait," Simon interrupted. He pointed to Xastare. "You're a _thief?_"

"I _was_ a thief," she replied.

"BettyLu McDoogle, nimster and magsman, as crooked as an ostrich neck!" said Krak, who was enjoying Simon's shock tremendously.

Xastare rolled her eyes. "I don't steal or con anymore. I gave that up that life."

"And your name," said Simon.

"Ya, Jude gave me this name, Xastare Baxshesh. It's Persian, don't you know?"

"Does it mean something?" Simon asked.

Krak found that question hilarious. "It means that Xastare here is hoping that God's in a forgiving sort of mood when she finally goes to meet him!"

Xastare shrugged. "Look, it's not that big a deal. I'm small, I'm nimble, I fell in with the wrong crowd, I got into burglary. A lot of times for the really big scores, you need to do some con work, so I got into conning. I was good at it all, really good, which eventually became a problem, don't you know? The key to hitting the big scores and not getting caught is, you gotta do people who can't go to the authorities—their money is from drugs or smuggling or something illegal. But once you start moving up the food chain with those kinds of people, that becomes a problem too, because when those fellows are big enough, they can try to kill you."

"So she moved to swindling war orphans," said Krak.

"I did _not_ swindle war orphans," said Xastare. "On the Core planets, there's always these society-types who are raising money for various charities, and seriously, about a third of those people are skimming or keeping the money, don't you see? So since that type seemed less likely to resort to violence, I moved into that line. What I'd do was, I'd set myself up as a laundering operation—hey, you've skimmed this money, I'll make it look legit. But then I'd just take the money and go."

"But it's not like you gave the money to the war orphans," said Krak.

"No, I didn't, I'd blow it on stupid things or gamble it away—basically I'd burn through it so that I'd have to do an even bigger job the next time. I saw some of my partners into some pretty comfortable retirements, didn't I? But I couldn't do that, it wasn't really about the money for me, and the problem was, these people were too well-connected. They'd lie about what had happened, and the charity would help cover it up because they didn't want people to know that no one was minding the store, and it all became just: This con artist stole money from war orphans, or whoever."

"Did you ever work on Osiris?" asked Simon.

"Ya, a few times," Xastare replied. "Anyway, there were a couple of suicides, and those became all my fault too—not that I wasn't to blame, I shouldn't have been doing it, but the Alliance tends to oversimplify things sometimes. So after a while I became red-hot with them. Stealing those suits didn't help none with that, but some opportunities…."

"So you came here," said Simon.

"Sort of. I joined a crew with a ship that didn't care I was red-hot. They claimed to be cons, but they weren't really. What they were, basically, were killers and scavengers—just one cut above Reavers, truth be told. Once I knew what they were doing, I didn't want to be with them, but I couldn't leave because they'd kill me and I had no place left to go. And they landed here, and I was supposed to scope out the settlement, but you know, the choice was just too stark. I felt like I was out of options, that my old life had run out, and here God was giving me a chance at a new one."

"So she turned them in. And we all trust her with our lives now, but not our money," said Krak, still teasing. "So what about you, medic? Let's look you up."

Simon was a bit more relaxed about it—at least until both their jaws dropped open. Xastare whistled. "Who do you owe money to?" she asked him, incredulous. "Your bounty is bigger than mine!"

"Oh, and look—no actual charge on the warrants. Just pick 'em up," said Krak. "Typical."

"Of what?" Simon asked, crossing his fingers.

"Of what?" said Krak. "Of what happens when you piss off some fellow who's big enough to use the entire Alliance to settle some personal grudge. My ma's warrant never had no explanation on it."

"Well, what would it have said?" asked Xastare. "Wanted: For to be beaten and/or killed by wealthy, fixated pervert?"

"Exactly," said Krak. 

And that, to Simon's surprise, was all the commentary that their warrants provoked. 

Well, all at the station. When Simon left to finally get back to the inn and get some rest, Krak tagged along.

Once they were away from the station, his face lapsed into an uncharacteristic grimness. "I noticed something else about the bounty. They want your sister alive. They don't care about you."

Simon nodded.

"You bet her, didn't you?" Krak asked, angrily. "You bet her, or you offered her as some sort of payment for something. That's why she had to run, too."

"I really don't want to talk about this," Simon said.

"She doesn't deserve this," said Krak. "My ma made mistakes in her youth, sins of the flesh and all that. But she didn't deserve what that fellow had planned when he bought her. Your sister doesn't, either. No how."

"I know," Simon said, and turned into the inn.

Where Book promptly intercepted him to inquire as to his well-being.

"I'm tired," snapped Simon, then relented. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Are you all right? I understand you did some fast-talking to get Annelore back."

"Uh, yes," said Book, looking down, guiltily. There was an awkward silence.

_Book has secrets, too, _thought Simon_. _

"Did you, did you know that Xastare used to be some sort of criminal mastermind?" he asked. "In fact, I think she may have been the one who ruined the Lizzuls—they were in our tennis club on Osiris." 

Book looked up and pursued his lips. "I reckoned she was no stranger to criminal activity, yes. You noticed her scar," he said, putting his hand on his collarbone.

"It's hard to miss," said Simon.

"It's also in the shape of some of the tattoos used by triad members. Fairly accomplished ones. She may have had another on her hand, although that scar could possibly be from an accident."

"But she could just cover something like that up with dermasheets," said Simon. "There's no need to—"

"She could just cover it up," said Book. "But it wouldn't be _gone._ I think that she or someone else removed them after she came here. And I think they used a knife."

Simon went to their room.

He was so out of it, he almost crushed the gift by lying on it. He pulled the object out from under his shoulder—it was a small bottle, made out of something like grass. He looked closer. The handiwork was remarkable. The grass had been carefully knotted to make a pattern: An elaborate "R" intertwined with a sinuous "S."

He smiled and fell asleep.

____

TRANSLATIONS

magsman: archaic English, "con artist"

footpaddery: archaic English, "robbery"

callifudges: archaic English, "swindles"


	9. Chapter 9

It had been a great trip. 

Four glorious days. No Dr. Snot and the Swami. No spookiness or bitchiness or folks prancing around, keeping count of everything Jayne had ever done wrong. 

Just Jayne and his guns and his knives—a beautiful thing.

It would have been nice, he would admit, to have Book along. Spead was great fun, but his high spirits came largely from the bottle, so he wasn't much one for workouts. 

On the other hand, Spead had some great stories about poontang, and you sure couldn't expect none of those out of Book. Jayne had never known a rich feller before who didn't have a stick up his pigu. But Spead didn't act like he was too good to talk to Jayne about all kinds of things.

And he had tales to tell. Stories about companions ("worth every credit") and bored debutants and the excitingly rivalrous Milton sisters. And he'd listen too, he wasn't too full of himself not to realize that Jayne was an expert on women. He especially wanted to know if there looked to be any fine tail on Glory of God.

Spead sure loved women. Sometimes a bit too much than was good for him—there was that incident with Zoe, but all it took was a little ice and some rest and he was good was new again. After Zoe, Spead pretty much left her and Kaylee alone, although Kaylee was a little unhappy when her home brew went missing.

Inara was always getting upset with Spead, for just an acre of reasons—the most nonsensical being that his traveling duds were too showy ("You don't even know what you've been aping!"), like she didn't tromp around in spangle-dangles all the time. 

Like Spead said, Inara shouldn't be so high-and-mighty, because the only reason companions was respectable was that they worked for men like him. Spead was great about putting the uppity into their place—he cut Sisyphus down time and time again. That was fun to watch: Sisyphus was such a sad sack, he just took it and took it and never fought back.

No, Spead was all right by Jayne. He reminded Jayne of his Uncle Bukka—you never actually saw him take a drink, but he was never exactly sober. Inara and the captain had a little game going, trying to figure out where the hooch came from. But Spead shared, so Jayne never mentioned the flask or nothing.

It was like a wonderful dream. But like they say, all good things die young, and Serenity landed on Glory of God. 

And there was the damned doctor, all uptight and waiting for them. Kaylee just about had a fall when she saw him—she was all lovey-dovey toward him, and he was all lovey-dovey back, and it was just sickening. Jayne had thought he'd seen the end of that, but there it was again, and Lord only knows why. Like Simon would even know what to do with a red-blooded girl like Kaylee.

The doctor's addle-minded friend was there—not a bad-looking piece of ass by any means, but Jayne had really enjoyed not having to deal with the mentally crippled, and here they were again. She practically bought the farm when she saw Sisyphus, she was so happy to see him. 

And Sisyphus was just a total pansy about it, he couldn't even step up and pretend to be man. His actually first words to her were, "I don't know if I can help you." Just like that. She's all, Sisyphus, my savior! And he's like, I don't know if I can. Not like Jayne was looking to do no charity work, but could save folks when he wanted too. Sisyphus was just pathetic, like a dog who'd been kicked so many times he wouldn't put his tail up anymore. Like no kind of man at all.

And Spead was just gone, bailed off the ship with his bags without so much as a good-bye.

Book wasn't even around. Apparently Ants In The Brain-Pan didn't want to say hello to everyone because she was too busy doing macramé or something. Which was fine, except she had to be baby-sat all the time, so she tied up everyone else as well, which when you got down to it, was the problem with having her around in the first place, whatever her stupid powers.

And it was hot. Jayne was ready to get out of this shithole the minute he came.

* * *

Inara sent her message to Xenia and adjusted her veil. She was wearing the black-and-gold two-piece—she'd been wearing it a lot lately. She knew she'd wear the scarlet dress again, but not just yet. 

She stepped out of her shuttle and headed down to the cargo hold, where the settlers had begun unloading the ship's cargo. Mal was speaking to an enormously tall, quite stern-looking older man with a badge.

"So no tangelos in this shipment, this time. Avocados," said the man.

"Oh, I think I know where _those_ are headed," she said with a smile.

Mal smiled too. "Ah, Lawman Jude, I want you to meet Inara Serra."

"A pleasure," said Inara, holding out her hand. 

She had it out for a moment before she realized that he wasn't going to take it. She dropped it, wondering if she had committed some sort of faux pas. Maybe he wasn't supposed to touch a woman who was not his wife?

"The companion," said Jude. 

The expression on Mal's face said it all—_Damn__. _Of course, it had been a calculated risk, but most people on the Rim, even the religious ones, were so dazzled by a companion's glamour that they were willing to suspend judgment regarding her occupation.

"I'm sorry, was Smith unable to come up with an adequate payment? Because this is a payment in cats," said Jude.

"Oh! I'm not a payment," said Inara, relieved. Perhaps the situation was salvageable after all.

"No, no, you miscomprehend the situation," said Mal, obviously thinking along the same lines. "Check the cargo. Smith has paid you full up. Inara's not here to work, she just travels with us."

"That must be very convenient for you," said Jude.

"I don't pay _him _in trade, either," said Inara.

The tall lawman didn't even acknowledge that she had spoken. "She can't be here," he said.

"What? Listen, this is _my_ ship," Mal snapped.

"And it's on _my_ planet," said Jude. "There are three things that have never been allowed on Glory of God: pigs, sloth, and whoring."

"She's not a—she's a licensed companion, guild-certified. What she does is perfectly legal."

"To the Alliance," replied Jude. "Not to us. What some people call smuggling, we call trade. What some people call providing companionship, we call—"

Inara couldn't take this, their bandying her about like she wasn't even there. "I'm perfectly happy to abide by your law," she said, interrupting. "I'm not going to attempt my trade on your planet, I swear it."

He turned to her, finally. "No you won't," he said, flatly. "You'll stay on this ship. You will not set foot on Glory of God."

"What?" said Mal. He was practically shouting, and the settlers were beginning to notice. "No. No. I have put up with your evil-mindedness and your suspicion and your insane religion because I think there is good business to be done here that could benefit us both. But it's your turn to yield some. Inara is part of this crew—it's only by accident that she wasn't here before, or you'd know that by now. She is with us for good. She belongs with us, she is one of us, and I expect every courtesy to be extended to her, the same as they would to any other of us. You sha gua, she is the person who found Annelore's lawyer friend! She tracked him down by herself, which she didn't have to do, and she convinced him to hop on a ship full of people he had never met and to be taken to some backwater world he's never been to before. She did that for someone she didn't even know, and for no benefit to herself."

"I know a whore can mean well—" Jude began.

"And how would you know, if there aren't any?" It was Simon. Inara hadn't even noticed him walk up behind Jude, she was so focused on the obdurate lawman.

"I mean, how would you know that a whore can mean well, unless you've met a few?" Simon continued. "I'm sure Xastare never thought twice about having sex with her marks—back when she was BettyLu McDoogle, of course—and what was that for if not money? And then there's Krak's mother—"

"Chastity Kak has been nothing but an upstanding citizen since she came here!" roared Jude.

"Her name's Chastity, is it?" said Simon, with an amused chuckle. "I didn't know that. Tell me, was she born with that name? Or did you give her it to her? _When_ she came here, and became this upstanding citizen?"

Jude's face flushed—he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.

"I think quite a number of residents here have done some bad things on other planets," Simon continued. "You don't hold it against them as long as they didn't do it here."

"You're twisting things," said Jude. "They give up their old lives."

"Just like Inara will give up her wanton whoring while she's here," said Mal. Inara stared at him. It was amazing how quickly he regressed. "Think about it—she'll have whoring-free time every time she comes to visit you all. A chance to live pure, however briefly. And who knows? Perhaps being among you Godly folk in all their purity will cause our dear Inara here to re-examine her sordid life. Maybe the Glory of God will come upon her and she—"

"You shut it," said Jude. His voice was quiet, but angry. He lifted a finger—they all obediently were still—and walked to the wall of the cargo hold, kneeling down and rocking with his palms upward. After a few moment of this, he got back up.

He looked at Mal and shook his head, but there was humor there. "Do I look like Kerry Li to you?" he asked. 

Then he turned to Inara. "You can go out. But no whoring on this moon."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Inara replied. 

And of course, a sensible man would have quit while he was ahead. But Mal just had to plow on.

"She'll be like Cesare's wife," he said, putting the emphasis on the second syllable of the name. Because what they really needed right now was a malapropism.

Jude looked confused. Inara silently hoped that the schools on Glory of God were as bad as those everywhere else on the Rim.

"Who's Cesare?" he finally asked.

"I don't know my own self—it's just an expression," Mal replied, genuinely puzzled. "She'll behave."

"Yes," said Inara. "_I'll _behave_._"

_And I'll stay, _she thought. _For River.___

* * *

If the whole hullabaloo over Inara weren't enough, Spead had to bring Jude back an hour later by being drunk and obnoxious. It was quite the laugh for Mal that an accomplished whore could traipse around their pure little community without causing mass outbreaks of immorality, but some rich kid from the Core?—not so much. 

Anyway, it turned out that while alcohol was not strictly prohibited on Glory of God, that public drunkenness was very, very much frowned upon. And Spead either drank up his mysterious stash the moment they landed or used whatever unerring instinct that had led him to Kaylee's wine to find some settler's vat of agave beer. Thus limbered up, he got sufficiently chatty with Jasmine Li that even Kerry had to doubt his intentions. Someone suggested that he find a private place to sober up, and Spead got a touch feisty and more than a touch loud. He further offended the residents by demonstrating his top-notch swearing abilities—apparently he said some very unkind things about Buddha, and while the settlers on Glory of God didn't actually worship Buddha, they knew that there were settlers elsewhere who did, and were shocked and offended on their behalf.

So the next thing Mal knew, Jude's long face was back, along with one of the other lawmen, hauling a semi-conscious but still swearing Spead back into Serenity. They dumped him into his bed—since they were pressed for space, he had been bunking Book's room, and Mal hoped the shepherd would forgive him for putting the rich brat there if he wound up puking everywhere, which seemed likely.

"That man," said Jude, "is going to be a sojourner, not a pilgrim."

Mal was about to say something about it being fine with him, but Jude put up a hand.

"I know that he only paid you for a one-way trip," said Jude.

Mal was about to say something about Spead's newfound value as entertainment, but Jude waved his hand.

"We will pay you," he said, and the younger lawman, who had stepped off, came back into the common area with a large sack. Jude opened it.

"Five pounds of cured salami—your shepherd is quite fond of this. One jar of tallow. Three rounds of goat cheese—you have to chill these three, but they'll keep better than fresh fruit will. Five pounds of corn meal. Six jars of Jedediah Li's preserves."

Mal was about to say something about this being quite generous, but then Jude pulled out the two other jars. They were of glass, and they glowed amber in the light in a way Mal hadn't seen in years but would never forget. The fluid in them was thick, viscous, and if Mal remembered correctly, quite possibly the most-heavenly tasting thing he had ever eaten.

"And two of honey," said Jude.

And Mal couldn't even say they'd do it, because he just plain couldn't talk.

* * *

The elders of the settlement wanted to have some sort of meeting to decide what to do about Annelore. Simon told Sisyphus that it was just a formality, that they would of course let Annelore go, but Sisyphus told Simon and Inara just to go to the meeting without him. His stomach felt bad and he didn't have anything to add and he wasn't the kind of lawyer who argued cases before the court, so he wouldn't be much help—that's what he told them. "Just tell them I'll take her back to Pfalzenhoffer if they want, that's what I can do," he said.

So they all went off, although he could tell that Simon was kind of mad at him for not tagging along. They all went except for Spead, who had stopped singing and was quiet now in his room, and that big lug, Jayne. He was there to look after the ship, since on Simon's advice they were leaving the cargo doors open so that the settlers wouldn't get the wrong idea.

Jayne was lifting weights—Sisyphus could see him from the hallway leading to the infirmary. A big, dumb goon, whose sole life skill was the ability to lift heavy things. Over and over again.

But then the girl walked in. She looked to be about 17, and was really quite nice-looking, with long black hair, smooth olive skin, and regular dark features. She walked over to Jayne, who put down his weights and sat up on the bench with a smile. She smiled too, and sat down next to him. She put her hand on his biceps and spoke softly to him for, oh, about 60 seconds total, and they were off, up the stairs and to the big goon's bunk.

Sisyphus rolled his eyes. _Soooo_predictable. He turned his back and walked to the passenger quarters. He stopped before a door, then hesitated and walked back to take another look at the cargo hold. Empty. 

He went back to the door, and knocked, gently. "It's time," he said.

The door opened noiselessly. "Let's go," said Spead.

They quietly walked off the ship and ran into the orchard. The "morning" bustle was over, and the area was largely deserted, so the two men spoke as they ran.

"How are we going to get her?" Sisyphus asked Spead. "Won't she be at that meeting?"

"No," said Spead. "They don't think she's with it enough, mentally. They don't even want her to know about the meeting, because they don't want her to get upset if she doesn't understand what's going on."

"So where the hell is she?" asked Sisyphus.

"Well, our lovely Jasmine is taking her to see her sister, Juanna. Except that Jasmine has discovered that she can make some time for herself by just pointing Annelore along the trail and giving her directions. Bored teens are the same everywhere, huh? That's how she hooked up with Wolf, by the way. He told me that when he gave me the love letter."

"What did you tell her about Wolf?"

"That he didn't mention her at all and is already taking up with other women. That's why she was so eager to get cozy with our overgrown friend. I feel like a little Cupid."

"Rather the anti-Cupid, don't you think? Are you going to give the letter to her eventually?"

"Why should I?" asked Spead, almost tripping with surprise.

"Well, it would be an object lesson in the perils of trusting dissipated rich men from the Core. And I feel badly for Wolf, pining away at Smith's, drowning his sorrows in drink and drugs and loose conversation with evil strangers."

"Valued customer. And you haven't read his poetry. It's awful—he is entirely undeserving of the little slut."

"You're a cold bastard, aren't you?" asked Sisyphus with a laugh.

"Well, we wouldn't be much use if we weren't," Spead replied with a smile. "Look! There she is!"

And there was Annelore, looking slightly confused but diligently walking along the path Jasmine had pointed out to her because it was the only thing she knew. They did a quick peek to make sure no one else was watching, then Sisyphus stepped out and watched her face melt with joy.

____

TRANSLATIONS

pigu: Chinese, "butt"

sha gua: Chinese, "fool"


	10. Chapter 10

Simon was in a hurry. That pregnant woman over at Determination had what sounded like a crisis, so Simon and Jing Mei ran over. And of course it was false labor yet again—or possibly very, very early labor, but nothing Jing Mei couldn't handle for hours yet—and Simon had to get back to Fortitude before the meeting began. Maybe he didn't need to run, they had said they wouldn't start without him, but he wanted to be sure.

So he was rushing. But not so much that he forgot about the whole thing with the listening devices and the explosives on that other ship. Jayne was on the ship, but even so, Simon thought that he'd make just a quick detour and make sure that the lawmen weren't planting any "guarantees" on Serenity while the crew was sitting in the Li's inn, waiting for the meeting to begin.

He quietly walked up to the ship, using the trees and a wagon parked near the ship for cover, and everything looked fine. But then he heard voices, and that's when he saw them emerge from the trees. 

Annelore. Sisyphus. And Spead, who was remarkably sober for a man Simon had only recently seen being carried out of the Lis tavern, screaming about the blue balls of Buddha. The two men were looking around suspiciously, while Annelore was chatting obliviously. "Is that your ship?" she asked.

"Come on," said Sisyphus, and she went into the ship with him.

Simon waited for them all to go in the ship. Then he cut back into the trees and approached the cargo doors from the side. He stood to one side of the doors and quickly glanced into the cargo hold. Then he realized that he had glanced too quickly to actually see anything, so he took a longer look. They had gone directly into the infirmary. 

That made it a little easier, since Simon had a pretty good idea of what parts of the ship were visible from the infirmary. He crept through the hold and peeked into the window.

Annelore was on the table, in restraints. Spead had place some mechanical gadget onto the side of Annelore's head—it looked like a spread of electrodes attached by a cord to something he had in his hand.

"Now, you have to do this just like I told you, OK?" Sisyphus was talking to Annelore.

"Sisyphus, what's going on?" she asked.

"It'll all be OK. You just have to trust me. You trust me, don't you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Sunlight," said Spead, and passed the gadget to Sisyphus.

"Beckon," said Sisyphus.

"Cholera," said Annelore.

The device on her head lit up, and she began to seize violently.

"What are you doing?" Simon shouted and ran into the infirmary. Both men grabbed him, pushing against him with their shoulders and preventing him from reaching her as she thrashed against the restraints.

"You just have to let it happen," said Spead.

Sisyphus grabbed a cloth and jammed it against Simon's mouth.

The seizures continued for what seemed like an eternity but couldn't have been much longer than a minute. Gradually they became less severe, then ceased altogether. Annelore lay still for a moment, then tried to move her hands and couldn't because of the restraints. Sisyphus went over and undid them, while the larger Spead held onto Simon. 

She put her hands to her head and groaned. Then she struggled to sit up, wincing against the light. She saw Simon and froze, her eyes widening.

"Simon!" she said. "What in rutting hell is Simon doing here, you morons?"

* * * 

"Great job defending that perimeter, guys," Annelore said, as the two men helped her walk down the corridor to Spead's room. "I can't imagine how things went wrong when I've got talent like you backing me up. Gou shi, does my head hurt."

Simon followed them into the room, and Sisyphus pulled the door shut behind him. Annelore was sitting on the bed, barely able to keep from collapsing altogether. She was madly rubbing her temples.

"Is-is your memory back?" asked Simon.

"Ugh, with a vengeance. Jesus, this is killing me. God, I was out for what, a year? This thing wasn't designed to work for any longer than a couple of weeks—Christ only knows what I did to myself."

"We thought you were dead," said Spead.

"Damn near," she replied. "Thanks to Douglaston's men." 

She suddenly looked up. "Reavers got them, right?"

"Right," said Sisyphus.

"Excellent," Annelore said, managing a smile. She rubbed her temples some more, then stopped and looked up again. "Those men the other day?"

"Douglaston, trying to make good on his contract," Sisyphus said.

"Hun dan—we don't use him again, all right? Just weapons, not people."

"You know, those men may be executed," Simon said.

"See what I mean?" Annelore said to Sisyphus. "As transporters of people, they range from the incompetent to the I-thought-I-was-gonna-die." 

"I'm sorry that happened to you," said Simon.

She glared at him. "It wasn't the only time."

"Annelore, what's going on?" Simon asked, weakly. "Why is your memory back? You did, you did what to yourself?"

Annelore smiled again—he remembered her smile as being warmer, somehow. "I think you can figure it out, right? You were a bright kid."

"The implant," he said.

"The implant," agreed Annelore. "You've got it. Looks like a rutting Frampold, acts like a rutting Frampold—most of them, anyway—but unlike a rutting Frampold, you can turn it off. It doesn't screw up your brain permanently by shorting out, it screws up your brain temporarily by sending out a constant stream of little shocks. The idea is, your brain can recover afterwards and you're good as new. Although I guess I really put that notion to the test, having the rutting thing on for a gorram year."

"Why?" asked Simon. "Why would do you that to yourself?"

"To withstand interrogation, Simon. The problem with underground organizations is, it's hard to organize if you don't have a person who knows things. But then that person becomes a liability if they are apprehended. This way, you avoid that problem—and in my case, you get to hump a thug guard, an added bonus."

"You're, you're a terrorist?"

Her lip curled. "Revolutionary is the preferred term, Jesus. And don't believe that Red Dawn crap, either. Total Alliance gou shi. Don't talk like you're so pleased with the status quo. How's your sister, anyway?"

The tone was not one of friendly inquiry, but Simon answered, "Fine. Um, were you the ones who—"

"No. Look guys, it's been great catching up with Simon here, but I think it's time for us to leave. Spead, where's your ship?"

Spead and Sisyphus exchanged glances. "There's a problem," said Spead.

"What kind of problem?" said Annelore.

"I don't have any money," said Spead. "I don't have a ship. My father married this biao zi who talked him into cutting me off. I've got nothing."

"Except the impressive ability to imitate an alcoholic," said Sisyphus.

"Thanks. If you met my mother, you'd understand," said Spead. "Hey, were you the one who stole that mechanic's wine?"

"Yes, I did. I figured, if you weren't really drunk, it would help with the illusion, and if you were really drunk, it would help to hide all the—"

 "What's her name?" said Annelore, interrupting the two men. "The biao zi."

"Desiree L'Amour," said Spead.

Annelore started to chuckle. "Do you know her _real _name?" she asked.

"She insists that's it," he said.

"She's lying," said both Annelore and Sisyphus.

"I know," he replied.

"When we get back," said Sisyphus.

"Yeah, you take care of her," Annelore said. "Someone with a name like that's got to have a skeleton or two in the closet. You'll find it, and we'll remove this impediment to the cause."

"Really?" Spead said to Sisyphus. "By the Amitabha, I wish I'd known you before this mission."

"That still leaves us on this ship," said Sisyphus.

"I know," Annelore lay back. She was silent for a few moments. "I think for now, we should just sit tight. This is a Firefly-class vessel, right? We stay here quiet like until my head stops pounding, and then we'll figure out a place for me to hide. There may be some fuss, but eventually they'll want the deal to be done and this ship is going to take off."

* * *

It was a little embarrassing at first when Simon was late to the meeting—everyone was there, and after some chit-chat, they were all just sort of waiting. But embarrassment quickly turned to alarm when word came that Simon had left Determination a half-hour ago, and then that Annelore had never arrived at that sister's home in Resilience. Lawman Jude hopped on his com and soon there was an alert out to see if anyone had seen another ship land. 

Kaylee just wasn't sure what to do and thought maybe she should go back to the ship to see if Simon was there. But then one of the electricians she had met her first time on the planet stopped her.

"Oh, Kaylee, you're just who I need to see!" he said. He was a charming fellow by the name of Wadi—she had forgotten his name, but he told it her again. He lived in Endurance, the next cave over, and his motorbike was broken.

"Normally, I wouldn't bother you," he said. "But they need it for the search party—they want to do a sweep and look for ships."

So of course she agreed to come along. He led the way out of the one cave, down the trail, and into the other. They walked pretty far into the cave and into one of the homes. "It's in the back room," he said, and opened a door that led almost immediately into the stone wall of the tunnel—opened it, as he had every other door, like a gentleman, and waved her through first.

She was such a dope, she didn't even realize when the door shut what was happening. The room was shaped almost like a hallway, and went off narrowly to the left. It took her a minute to realize that there was no bike. Then she heard the bolt shoot home and realized that she was trapped and alone.

On the floor was a mat. Next to the mat was a bottle of water, a chamber pot, a loaf of bread, a fat wedge of goat cheese, four slightly bruised tangelos, and a string of beads. On the mat was a note.

"Dear Kei Li," it said. "Please do not be scared. We will not hurt you. We just want our doctress back."

* * *

They couldn't be sure, and it was Zoe's fault. 

The one on the com system was easy—it was right out in the open, it just never turned off even though it looked like it did. There had been one stuck under the table in the dining area—not so small that you couldn't find it easy enough if you knew to look for it. And Zoe would bet her cut from their next job that they'd be getting a wave from Smith soon, wondering why there was a bug in the cargo.

But they couldn't be sure—from what Simon told them, the settlers could have access to devices that were much smaller and more sophisticated. A small charge, in the right place….

And she had let them walk all over the ship. _Idiot._ It was a colossal lapse of judgment, as though she were some back-birth who had never heard of the prevention principle: Easier to keep your enemy out than undo the damage once he had gotten in.

And why had she humped her own gorram crew so hard? That was the laugh of it—_security. _She, like the captain, like everyone, had wanted this deal to go down solid. She wanted the settlers to like them, to trust them, to want them back. She wanted Smith—a man who would never bring the Alliance down on them, because he had even more to lose—to need them. She wanted a nice, regular milk run, one that would bring them steady income and little danger.

People thought she and Wash weren't alike, but sometimes, they were just like twins. Except that Wash was willing to admit he thought their situation was too dicey for a child. While Zoe acted tough, and undermined the safety of her entire crew in a foolish effort to make their life more secure.

What kind of mother was she going to be?

She finished her sweep of the engine room, and depressingly, didn't find anything. She took a moment to tamp down her feelings—for now, she would just have to do her best in a bad situation. But she'd remember this. God, the baby wasn't even alive yet and already it was changing her.

Zoe walked back into the hallway and onto the catwalk, planning to go downstairs and check the infirmary and passenger rooms. But the nervous gathering in the cargo hold stopped her.

Wash, Mal and Jayne were looking out the cargo doors. Jayne had Vera in his hands in a way that made Zoe check her sidearm. She joined them, and saw a crowd of about 20 settlers. 

Like they thought, it hadn't taken long for the locals to start blaming the outsiders who were at hand.

The good news was, some of the settlers were standing with their back to the cargo doors, between the ship and the crowd. And they were mostly lawmen.

"You know they've got her! They've got our doctress!" shouted one of the angry settlers.

"We ain't got nobody!" Mal shouted back. "We're missing a doctor too!"

"And we're just supposed to take their word for it! The word of sojourners! Jude, what is wrong with you!"

 There were various cries of agreement, and shouts of "Jude!"

"I will _not_ have a mob!" Jude bellowed.

"What's going on?" The question came from behind Zoe. It was, of all people, Simon.

"You're _here_?" Zoe asked.

Mal turned to Jayne. "I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on the ship," he said.

"A man has to pee," Jayne replied, looking uncomfortable.

"What's going on?" Simon asked, again.

"They want Annelore," Zoe said. "And they think we have her."

Simon looked at the crowd, then looked at the crew. He said nothing, but Zoe could see that he had reached some sort of decision. "One moment," he said, and walked away, back toward the infirmary.

Zoe looked at the captain and Jayne. They were as confused as she was. 

Voices emerged from the back of the ship—one of them, a woman's. Zoe heard Simon say, "You don't have a choice." And then back he came, pulling someone by the arm. It was Annelore, looking in rather poor grace.

Her appearance set off an explosion of talk among the settlers, some of it angry. Simon pulled Annelore to the open doorway of the cargo hold. He raised his hand, and some of the settlers shushed the others.

"Here she is. She wasn't kidnapped, and she hasn't been harmed," he said.

"Lord's sake, what happened to you, child? We was worried sick!" It was Kerry Li, bustling up and putting her arms around the younger woman.

Annelore's face was blank. Then something crumbled inside her and she burst into tears. "Kerry, I'm so sorry."

The entire crowd gasped. Kerry pulled back from Annelore, a look of amazement on her face. "You know who I am, child?"

Annelore just nodded, too choked with tears to talk.

"Your memory's back?"

She nodded again.

"It's a miracle!" exclaimed one of the other settlers, and soon everything was drowned out by talk. Runners were sent to spread the word, and within minutes the small crowd that had gathered outside Serenity had grown into a vast, happy mob of settlers. 

"Did you do that?" Mal asked Simon.

"I didn't do anything," said Simon, looking somewhat pained. "I've never seen anything quite like it."

After some discussion, the settlers decided that seeing first Simon, and then Sisyphus had jarred Annelore's memory back to normal. Annelore seemed quite overwhelmed by the attention of the crowd, and eventually Kerry and Jude took her back into the common area. 

Sisyphus emerged, and the settlers all felt obligated to congratulate him and Serenity's crew on a job well done. Zoe found herself flashing back to her wedding day, as she stood next to Wash and accepted the congratulations of a seemingly endless line of people, most of whom she barely knew. 

Book and River arrived as the mob grew. Book was carrying two large baskets with handles. River was clapping and shouting "Yea! Yea!" with such glee, Zoe had to wonder what was going on inside her head.

Then Jude suddenly bolted from the back of the ship, his face dark with fury, and gathered the lawmen around, speaking to them in hushed and angry tones. His appearance suddenly brought everyone down to earth—something was very wrong. Zoe looked around her, alert again to threat and menace.

"Where's Kaylee?" she asked.

"Good question," said Wash. "Where is Kaylee?"

"Hey everyone!" it was Simon, once again with his hand raised. What that what people did here? "Everyone, has anybody seen our mechanic, Kaylee? She's the young lady on our crew."

"Wears coveralls, mostly," said Mal. "Young, light brown hair."

"Kaylee's missing?" said one of the lawmen, the small con artist Simon had said was the one who likely planted the gorram bugs. Xastare.

"I haven't seen her since that meeting," said Zoe.

Xastare pulled Jude's arm. He looked irritated, but she spoke quietly to him, and he stepped out in front of the crowd.

"Confess!" he snapped. "The law commands it!"

"She's all right," said a man's voice from the crowd. "We kept her fed." 

A little man stepped forward, looking defiant. Zoe had the strong urge to crush him.

"You kidnapped her?" asked Simon.

"No, we didn't _kidnap_ her, we was defending our cave and our doctress," the short man yelped.

"Without the knowledge or approval of the lawmen or elders," said Jude. "That's gonna cost you."

"I thought you killed kidnappers," said Simon.

"We have the right! In a crisis, we have the right to protect ourselves!" the man said, indignant. "And where _was _our doctress? She was right there, _on your ship!_"

Jude waved his hand, commanding silence. "Save your arguments for the elders' council. But everyone should know that Annelore told me that she came to this ship of her own free will, hoping to find her friends from her old life."

"Where is Kaylee?" asked Zoe.

"She's _fine,_" squeaked the pathetic little man. "She's in my root cellar. Jinny's looking after her."

"Jinny's right there," said Xastare, pointing at a small, weak-looking woman standing at the edge of the crowd.

"But you're mechanic's OK, don't worry about it," bleated the woman. "Qing Jie is looking after her."

"What?" said Jude, the color draining from his face. The other lawmen blanched. "Does he know that Annelore got her memory back?"

"Oh, yeah," said the woman, obviously perplexed by their response. "We all heard that—that's why I came. Qing said, 'You just go on ahead, Jinny, and see if it's true, what they're saying about Annelore. I'll look after Kaylee for you.'"

And the look on Jude's face chilled Zoe to the bone.

_____

TRANSLATIONS

biao zi: Chinese, "harlot"

Amitabha: Eternal Buddha

Wadi: Arabic, "valley" (there's no special meaning there, I just liked the sound of Wadi and Jinny)


	11. Chapter 11

Being a prisoner wasn't that bad, not for the most part. Mainly, it was kinda dull. At first, Kaylee poked around, looking for ways to escape, but the ceiling, floor and three of the walls were just solid rock, while the fourth wall was really thick—plaster or something—and the door was real solid too. So there wasn't much to be done that way.

They hadn't left her anything to do, that was the problem. For a while, she played with the beads, putting them on and twirling them around like she was a companion or a fancy lady or something. But then she realized that they were probably prayer beads, and she felt kind of bad for being disrespectful to them like that.

She tried shouting through the door at the people who'd taken her, a couple named Jinny and Wadi. They seemed like nice people, basically: they were real concerned that Kaylee not be worried about getting hurt. Wadi told Kaylee that he didn't think _she _had kidnapped anybody—"We only took you because we know they won't leave without you," he said. But they were kind of down on the rest of her crew, saying that somebody else on the ship could be a bad person and not listening when Kaylee explained how impossible that was. 

Also they didn't want to give Kaylee anything to do; Wadi was real impressed with her know-how, but the downside of that was that he felt like if they gave her something, even something to read, she'd figure out a way to use it to escape. Kaylee heard them argue about it, but Wadi must have won that one because they never even opened the door. 

Then there were a bunch of voices, people who sounded pretty angry. Kaylee could hear them getting more and more worked up, and that was when she began to really kind of get scared. But they didn't come for her or nothing, everyone left instead. Except for Jinny, who told Kaylee not to worry, that they was gonna find Annelore right quick and then they'd let Kaylee out.

Jinny wasn't too eager to talk to Kaylee after that, so she got real bored. Then there was a big bustle, with people shouting about something about Annelore and God. They sounded happy, so Kaylee figured they'd let her out. But things got quiet without her being let go, so she didn't know what to think. Then she heard the bolt slide back.

"Thank goodness!" she said, and went to the opening door. "Hi there," she said to the fellow who had opened it. "How's your donkey."

"Fine," he said, and punched her in the face. She fell backwards, and he kicked her in the stomach. Then he jumped on top of her, and that was all she knew for a bit.

She remembered that it was warm, warmer than it had been in her cell. Then it was cool again, and she was being put in a chair. _That's good,_ she thought, and tried to reach up to the table for dinner. But her hands were bound together, which seemed like an odd thing for the rest of the crew to do if they wanted her to be able to pass the plates.

_I need to know what's going on_, she thought_._ How could she do that? She couldn't see anything. Finally it occurred to her to open her eyes. But they weren't working right, and they wouldn't open. _One eye at a time,_ she thought, _don't stress the machinery_. 

Her left eye hurt, so she tried opening her right eye. It opened a crack, but the light was too bright, and she closed it again. Was she blind now, then? The pupils, she remembered, would be wide open because there was no light, so maybe she should try again and keep the eye open for longer. _Give it a little push._

It worked, but boy was it painful. It seemed to take forever for that pupil to get its act together and make it so Kaylee could see. And then she could just see a little bit, which she realized was because she needed to open her eye wider. She did that, and saw that she was on a ship.

_It's not Serenity,_ she thought. _I need to open that other eye. _

"Devil, devil, devil!" said the voice.

Her left eye was in some ways easier. The pupil seemed to do better, so there was less pain from the brightness. But the eye wouldn't open all the way wide. And it hurt. And (Kaylee was so proud of herself for realizing this) it was swollen!

_I got punched in the face,_ she thought. 

"Snnnnake!" the voice hissed. "Filthy snake! E mo! E mo!"

The voice was distracting, so Kaylee tried to tune it out. Her legs ached, so she tried to move them. They were tied, too. 

With both eyes, now, she tried to look. At first, they wouldn't work together, but she insisted, and eventually they did. She was definitely on a ship, a smallish vessel, not much older than Serenity. She was looking at the console, and realized that she was in the pilot's chair.

_I should be able to see out the window,_ she thought, and looked up. 

They weren't in space. Kaylee mulled it over and decided that was a good thing. They were on a planet. Dry scrub stretched out before her. There were hills.

_Glory of God?_she wondered.

"There are many faces of God," said the voice. She hadn't realized before how close it was. Hands reached out and swiveled her chair around. After the black spots cleared, she realized that she was looking into the intense face of the man who had hit her.

She was going to say something, but couldn't quite manage it.

"Many, many faces. That's the wonderful thing about God. He has so, so many, many, many, many, many faces. Everybody is a part of God. Everybody shows a face of God."

He seemed pretty insistent about it, so Kaylee managed to nod.

"But not me," he said. "No, no, no, not me. Not God, not me. My _desires, _my _sins, _they have no part of God."

He leaned close and whispered to Kaylee in a strangled voice: "_God has abandoned me!_"

"Um," said Kaylee. It wasn't a very useful thing to say, but she got a noise out of her throat, which was something.

"Oh, yes! They said it wouldn't happened, no it wouldn't, but it did, yes, yes it did. Abandoned. Oh, I tried, I tried, I tried, I tried. The angel, the angel Annelore, every day, every _hour _washed clean. She was not aware, you know, not aware of the sins I heaped upon her. Not aware. Washed clean."

"Mister?" said Kaylee. Her mouth was dry.

"_But I was not._ I was not clean, God did not wash me clean, I brought my sins to God's angel and God said, You keep them! You keep your filthy sins and your filthy soul! You will not be clean!"

He laughed.

"Oh see, don't you see? We've built Paradise here! Paradise! It's all here, it's all glorious! _And I'm the serpent in the Garden!_ That's me! That's my role, what God wants for me. Dirty, dirty snake. Crawl on the ground, in the filth."

"I don't think—" said Kaylee.

"But I won't do it! I defy God! _I am Satan, and I defy God! _I caught you—you're clean, you're clean, and I caught you. And you'll be _my _angel. You will fly me away, we will fly away together. You will take me out of this garden, you will. _I will not be the snake!_"

He was down on his knees in front of her. She started when he pulled out the knife, but he cut through the rope around her hands and spun her chair back away.

"_Fly me away, angel! Fly me away!"_

And the tears fell because her eye hurt and her legs ached and he was scary and Kaylee knew he would never, ever believe that she didn't know how to fly a ship.

* * *

When the runner came back and reported that the root cellar was empty, the lawmen just about had a conniption and Mal was ready to have one, too. 

"This doesn't make _sense,_" said Xastare. "What's he trying to do?"

"A hostage," said Mal. "He thinks if he takes a hostage, he won't get punished for what he did to Annelore."

"How would that work?" asked Xastare. "We're the only settlement. There's no place else for him to go."

"The desert," said Zoe.

"No," said Jude. "Qing tried being a huntsman once. He nearly starved to death. He doesn't have the skills."

"So his only option is to leave the planet," said Mal. "Maybe he's going to blackmail us, Kaylee's life for a ride."

"Or—" Xastare snapped her fingers. "I know where he's going. Give me the com."

She spent a few minutes on the com. "Got it!" she shouted. "The Tiger. Huntsmen say there's a vehicle there."

"What's the Tiger?" asked Mal.

"That's my ship," Xastare replied. 

"It's spaceworthy?" asked Jude.

"Should be—you never cracked it. I flew it to where it is now," she said.

"That's right," he said, and patted her shoulder. "I never mentioned it at the time, but that was very considerate of you."

She gave a wry smile. "My dowry," she said.

"Can Qing fly a ship?" asked Wash. "Because I don't think Kaylee can."

"She can't fly a ship?" asked an incredulous lawman, the young fellow who had helped haul Spead aboard. "But she knows so much about them."

Mal got a sinking feeling in his stomach. _Oh, Kaylee. _"I don't think she ever has," he said.

It didn't take long for the reinforcements to show up with some bikes and almost the entire stable of horses—one good thing about their gorram clannishness, they understood that Serenity's crew was damned well going to help get back one of their own. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne saddled up, with both doctors tagging along on the back of the bikes. The rest stayed along with a contingent of lawmen in case that hun dan decided to head for Serenity.

They followed the small blond, riding all out through the fields and into the desert and through the hills, 

Mal heard it in the hoofbeats: _Now _she could be dead, _now _she could be dead, _now _she could be dead. 

It seemed like it took forever to get there, to get to the ship with the four-wheeler parked in front of it and the trail left by Kaylee's dragged body going straight to the sealed-tight cargo door.

"I see you, the all-seeing eye," said the voice of that crazy e mo who had taken Kaylee, carried over the ship's communication system. "I see your trickery. People of God, are you! I see you, and I know you. Keep away!"

The lawmen were huddled in intense discussion. Mal, Jayne and Zoe joined them. "He knows what we do," the young fellow was saying. "He's lived here his whole life."

Xastare looked at Jayne's gun. "You a good shot?" she asked.

"Qing!" it was Jude, shouting up to the ship. "Qing, show us that the girl is OK. Otherwise we'll come after you, we'll crack you right open!"

"If you crack me, she dies," said the voice. 

Then there was a pause.

"Hey, folks, I'm OK," it was Kaylee. Mal felt waves of relief flow over him.

"No cracking, no, no, no!" the madman went on. "And no stealthy suits! If the door opens, you're down there, and I'm up here, and she dies. I see Xastare. Step up Xastare, step where I can see you. No crawling up the ship. If I can't see you, Xastare, if you vanish, this filthy bint dies."

Xastare twisted her mouth but stepped away from the clutch of lawmen, holding her hands up.

"You're no angel, you know," the voice continued. "Oh, no, no, no, you think that you can be washed, washed clean, clean and pure. But it will stick to you, yes it will, the filth will stick to your soul forever. The blood of the people you killed. The men you left in the desert to be cut down like goats. I remember that day well, so well, so much blood, so _much_ blood—so does God. Filthy bint. Filthy, lying bint. Hypocrite! Pretend because you cut it away. _Liar!_"

She winced, but stood firm. _Keep his attention,_ Mal thought. 

"This one lies too, yes she does. Lying bint. When she dies, the blood will be on your head. The sin will be yours."

"The sin will be yours, Qing, if you kill her," Xastare shouted. "The sin will be yours."

The voice groaned. "More filth. Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty e mo. Serpent. Satan, Satan, Satan."

"I don't like the sound of that, Sir," said Zoe.

"Nor do I," said Mal.

"We don't have a lot of options," said Jude. "He's sealed up tight in there. Unless your man gets a lucky shot through the window"—he gestured to Jayne, who was settling into a sniper's position up the hill facing the ship—"we're going to have to wait him out."

"He sounds like he's about to crack himself, and I don't think that bodes well for Kaylee," Mal said.

"Maybe he'll just give up," Jude replied, without much conviction.

But he was right, as long as Qing was in the ship, they really had no choice but to sit him out and hope to get lucky. Qing could see Jayne setting up as well as they, so if he had sanity enough left, he'd be using Kaylee as a shield. Mal checked his gun again, and wondered if there was some way to use Serenity to their advantage. 

"Hey, are you OK?" a woman's voice shouted out. Mal looked up from his weapon. It was Annelore, holding a med kit.

"_Oooooh__!_" the voice exclaimed. "You, you, you!"

"Do we know each other?" the woman asked. "I can't seem to remember. I don't know what's going on here, or who you people are, except I went to school with him"—she pointed at Simon. "Anyway, I'm a doctor, and I want to help you. You don't sound very well. You sound sick."

"I'll say," Zoe said to Mal.

"My name is Annelore Hidalgo. I think there's something wrong with my memory, but I graduated from the Capital City Medacad, which is the best medacad on Osiris. I remember all my medical training. I can help you."

"You're dirty now! I heard it! That's what they said, she's dirty, she knows the filth," the voice said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Annelore continued. "I follow sterile procedure, if that's what you're worried about. I know I can help you, if only you let me."

"Oooh, oooh," said the voice. "Walk up to the cargo door—by yourself! I'll be down there. If the others try any trickery, the blood will be on them! Their souls!"

Annelore walked up to the cargo doors, where she stood for several moments. The door slid open slightly, and Qing, standing well inside the hold, but across the door, beckoned her in, a knife in one hand. She walked through, and he again put his body between her and the doorway, as though to bar the way against invisible enemies.

With a sudden viciousness, Annelore swung the med kit with both hands over her shoulder, hitting Qing on the back of his head with an audible _thwack. _He staggered and turned to her, knife up, but she hit him in the gut with a well-executed a side kick that threw him back out of the doorway. A second kick, and he was clear of the hold completely. She ducked behind the doors.

Jayne had one shot, and oh, did he ever take it. The report sounded as Qing threw both hands to his back, dropping the knife. He staggered away from the ship and fell onto the dry earth.

The lawmen and Mal and Zoe sprang into action, surrounding Qing—just like anyone with any experience in these things, or common sense for that matter, would do. Check him first for surprises, then take a team in the ship to make sure there were no surprises _there,_ and then get Kaylee. But Simon sprang into action, too, running past all the people who were actually armed with real weapons, holding his med kit up like it would protect him against whatever booby trap or ambush lay in that cargo hold.

"Gorram!" said Mal and the young lawman, and they both ran in after Simon, with Zoe on Mal's heels. _Might as well all go down together,_ Mal thought, as they ran past Annelore in the hold, up the stairs, and into the cockpit after the doctor.

* * *

Kaylee had been beaten fairly badly—a nasty shiner on her right eye, a sore stomach from being kicked, bruising from the ropes, and a fat lip that looked quite fresh. That animal had knocked her out to bring her there, and although she seemed largely recovered Simon was going to be damned sure that she was kept in the infirmary and watched carefully for signs of a serious concussion.

But she could stand and had no broken bones—a miracle, really. Wonderfully, she kept insisting that she was fine, as though the worst part of it all was the emotional pain her trauma caused others. 

Mal, Zoe, and soon Jayne had joined them, along with Krak, who kept saying that Simon cost him a day's labor for making him swear—apparently there was some obscure ship-storming protocol Simon hadn't followed, but he couldn't be bothered about it right now. 

Kaylee could walk, but Simon put his arm around her waist anyway and helped her down the stairs and across the hold, her arm over his shoulder. 

They got to the door of the hold, and that was when Simon saw Annelore. She was standing quite still about a foot away from the ship, holding her med kit and looking down with absolutely no expression on her face. They didn't see what she was looking at until they crossed the threshold and Kaylee gasped.

It was Qing. He was still alive, writhing in pain on the earth. Blood was pumping from his wound.

Simon looked at Kaylee. She flinched, and her face turned white. 

She turned to Simon. "Help him," she said. 

He nodded. Zoe came up and put a hand around Kaylee. "We'll take her back to the ship," she said.

"Jain Kang or Jing Mei should be able to help," he said. 

Kaylee's lip was swollen, so he had to kiss her cheek. "I'll see you soon," he said.

He turned to the bleeding man.

Qing was a mess. He had been shot through the back, and the bullet had come out his belly. He was bleeding profusely, and the involvement of the intestines meant that sepsis was almost certain. The writhing had not helped matters any, and Simon quickly pulled out a needle to sedate him. 

"Don't knock him out," said a man's voice. Simon looked up. It was Krak. "Stop the pain, but don't put him to sleep."

He looked at his patient. Qing was shaking his head and mouthing the word "No" over and over again.

Obviously some sort of religious prohibition. "I'll give you a pain-killer then, but you have to lie still," Simon said.

There was a chance, but not a great one, that he could be saved, especially if the bleeding could be stopped. Simon wondered if the infirmary on Xastare's ship was as well-stocked as the last one. He looked over his shoulder.

Annelore had not moved. 

"Can you please go evaluate the facilities?" he asked. 

She began to laugh, then put her hand over her face, looking to see if Krak had noticed. He was looking away, so she quickly got down on her knees next to Simon.

"Are you rutting me?" she whispered. "Do you know what that chou lou bu kan bastard did to me?"

"I'm not asking you to save him," Simon said.

"No, you're asking me to help _you_ save him," she said.

"I know this is difficult," said Simon, and she rolled her eyes. "But you are a doctor."

"Maybe you missed the Cortex alert, genius, but _you're_ a doctor," she hissed. "_I'm _a terrorist."

Simon looked at her, and came up with the only argument he could think of. "_They _don't know that."

She looked at the lawmen, who had gathered around Jude. "Fine," she said, and slowly got up and walked into the ship.

After what seemed like an age, she reappeared at Simon's side. "How are the facilities?" he asked.

She pointed away from the ship. "It doesn't matter," she said.

Simon looked up. Jude was walking over to him, holding a com. His face, as always, looked grim, but this time there was a tinge of sadness. He handed the com to another lawmen, and stood over Qing. Jude reached into his shirt, and pulled out a small, white, brimless cap. He put it on his head.

"I'm sorry," whispered Qing.

Jude turned around and put his hands up, palms in the air. As if on cue, the lawmen too began to cry.

"Come on," said Annelore, pulling Simon away from his patient. "You can't heal the dead."

She smiled, and Simon felt a shiver run through him. 

"No!" he said, pulling away from her and throwing himself over his patient. "You can't!"

The lawmen came over to him, picked him up, and carried him away. 

"No!" he shouted again. "It's barbaric."

Krak grabbed his shoulder. 

"_Barbaric?_" he hissed, tears in his eyes. "I've known Qing _my entire life._ This is the only funeral he will ever have, and you _will _show respect!"

Simon stopped struggling. It was no use, anyhow. There were too many of them.

"God is great!" shouted Jude.

"God is great!" shouted the lawmen.

"Oh God," Jude continued. "Forgive Qing Jie and have mercy on him. Relieve him of all evils and pardon him, and make easy his entrance into Paradise. Wash Qing and purify him of sins. as you purify a white garment of filth. Grant him a home better than his home, a family better than his family, and let him enter Paradise. Protect him from the torment of the grave and the punishment of hell. God is great!"

"God is great!" replied the lawmen.

"Oh God. Forgive us and him. Don't deprive us of Qing Jie's reward. God is great!"

"God is great!" 

"Oh God. Your mercy is infinite, and our need for it is also infinite. We have made the desert bloom, but we have not created Paradise. We submit to your will—but not fully, not completely, for we are but imperfect beings, weak before temptation, quick to lose the way of God. 

"Long have we known Qing Jie. We know his family, and we know that losing him is a bitter grief indeed. For this is the way of the world—temptation, failure, and grief. There is no paradise here, for we are frail children of dust, feeble and imperfect. The only paradise is that which you through your mercy allow us, through your purification—a boon, indeed, to those as sinful as we. 

"It is not here, but it is there—your paradise where all are pure, where all live together in peace and brotherhood as in one cave, as in one family. We beg you, oh God, to grant mercy to Qing Jie and all those who submit, however imperfectly, to your will. God is great!"

"God is great!" called the lawmen.

Qing began to move again, and the lawmen moved to help him. The turned him onto his side. Still weeping, he turned his chin up. 

Jude had something hidden in his hand as he kneeled next to the man. Quietly, he said, "In the name of God, God is great," then swept his hand across Qing's throat. 

It was so quick, Simon didn't even see the knife.

* * *

They left Glory of God soon after, as soon as the fruit was loaded and the elders who had ordered the murder of Qing Jie could give their meaningless stamp of approval to Annelore's departure. The settlers gave her a teary farewell, recounting stories of her kindness and the lives she had saved. Simon just couldn't stomach it, so he went to the infirmary to be with Kaylee.

She would be ready to leave there soon, and they would have to figure out where they were going to sleep three extra people on their trip back to Pfalzenhoffer. Simon knew he didn't want to share his room with any of them, and he didn't want River to, either. 

River was back on the ship, at least. She had also stopped responding to the name "Girleen" and had stopped making baskets. She let Simon keep his, but insisted that all the others be given to the settlers, a gesture that resulted in them getting more jars of jam and tallow.

Simon waited until they left the planet before he told the crew what had happened to Qing Jie. Naturally, Kaylee was very upset, and wanted to know why the settlers didn't help someone who was so obviously mentally ill. 

All Simon could do was point out that the settlers were now completely without competent medical personnel. But Zoe had the last word: "Kaylee, when someone tells you that they are a monster, my experience is, they are telling you the truth."

He tried to avoid Annelore. Spead was planning to bring her to Pfalzenhoffer as his fiancée—another fabrication in the tissue of lies that was his life, although at least they weren't pretending to the crew that the engagement was anything other than a ruse to allow her to stay on the planet. 

But she did corner him one time when they were alone. "You're really upset with me, aren't you? If I had known that Qing Jie was going to go after your mechanic—"

Simon interrupted. "When we were in medacad, you used to say that what you really wanted to do was to help people. Other people could be the fancy specialists and make obscene amounts of money, but you'd be happy to just have a little clinic on some little backwater planet that no one else cared about, helping the people who no one else would."

She smiled. "I remember those days. When I thought it was simple. Before I realized that your little clinic would have no drugs, and a bunch of thugs backed by the Alliance would work people to death no matter what you did for them." 

She pulled her hair and sighed.

"I do regret leaving Glory of God and those people there. But this is life, you know? There's no happy, neat ending, with everything tied up in a bow. You sacrifice what you like for what you love. You sacrifice what you want for what you need. Everything that's unnecessary goes on the alter of that which is, and you take a knife and you just slit its throat. You just cut right through."

They sat in silence for a minute.

"But what about you?" Annelore asked. "What happened with your sister at that academy, anyway? She's in pretty bad shape."

And there it was, in him—that same hardness. That same calculation. _What are the chances that she knows what happened? What are the chances she can be trusted?_

"Oh, I was just overreacting, sort of," he said with a laugh. "I feel sort of silly about it now. I'm sure you've realized that River suffers from schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia. She developed it at the academy, and they didn't recognize it right away. That's why she was writing those letters. Shortly after I spoke to you, she had a major psychotic break—which was pretty embarrassing to have to explain to the person who contacted me. She had to drop out."

"That's a shame about River. I remember you saying how bright she was. So why are you both here and not on Osiris?"

Simon smiled and rubbed his ear. Why not?

"I gambled, you know—or I guess you didn't, I was gambling pretty heavily back at medacad but I kept it quiet. Anyway—look, don't tell anyone this, OK?—I had a _lot_ of debt, a _lot._ I was in real trouble, or I guess what at the time felt like real trouble.And I had this great tip about this soccer game. So I thought I could get out from under my debts, because this tip was supposed to be really solid, but I didn't have any collateral. And there was this man, who had a lot of money and was really well-connected, and he had his eye on River. He was, you know—he had kind of a thing for crazy girls."

He spread fingers and shrugged, as Annelore recoiled. 

"It was supposed to be a sure thing," he said.

Annelore didn't try to talk to him after that, and when Serenity left them and the cargo behind on Pfalzenhoffer, Simon knew she would never try to talk to him ever again. But as he sat at the dinner table with River and Kaylee and Book and Mal and Inara and Wash and Zoe and even Jayne, he felt not a twinge of regret.

Because in one respect, Annelore had told the truth:_ You sacrifice what you like for what you love._

—FINIT—

Dedicated to the memory of Kerry ("Lux Lucre") Pearson and Valerie Anderson, who have found serenity.

_____

TRANSLATIONS

chou lou bu kan: Chinese, "ugly as a mud fence" (I was looking to translate "ugly," and this is what I got. If it's not a real expression, it should be.)


End file.
